In theory, the issue of the WRA should have had a new standard interpretation after Deng, the most authoritative leader, expressed his opinion on it. As shown in the previous discussion, however, because of Deng’s ambiguous attitude, supporters of both the orthodox and the new interpretations felt that there was space to negotiate.
After Li’s report was filed in the Party’s archives according to Deng’s directive, the CCP’s most senior agency on Party history—the Central Party History Leading Group—issued an instruction about narrating the WRA’s history, including those that specialized in writing Party history, such as the CPHRO and institutions that were in charge of writing the histories of the Red Army and the People’s Liberation Army. At the time, the Military Science Academy was writing a general military history of the CCP. When the Party Center’s instruction about the WRA’s history was conveyed to the writing team, these compilers read two major points into it. First, the Party Center considered the WRA to be a significant historical issue, so it had investigated it and drawn its own conclusions. However, the compilers were
81 Chen Yongfa 陳永發, Zhongguo gongchan geming qishi nian 中國共產革命七十年 (Seventy years of Chinese Communist revolution). Taipei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi 聯經出版事業公司, 1998, p. 10.
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not informed what those conclusions were. Second, in future, all narratives about the WRA should avoid discussing the following three aspects of that history—how the troops crossed the Yellow River; the WRA’s mission, and the reasons for its defeat.82 This instruction was the Party Center’s way of signaling to the advocates
of the new interpretation that their appeals had been noted. It also served to prevent the new interpretation from being disseminated to a wider audience. From the perspective of official History writers, the above instruction actually represented a challenge for them, because discussions on some basic, but important, issues of this history were forbidden, making narration of the WRA’s history even more difficult than it had been during the Mao Era. These writers had no choice but to juggle with words in order to avoid criticism from both the advocates of the orthodox and the new interpretations. In 1991, the CPHRO compiled and published an official version of History of the Chinese Communist Party. In this book, the three questions above were avoided, and the WRA’s history was narrated simply as, “marched to the west bank of the Yellow River according to orders.” It was an exceedingly ambiguous account that failed to provide any indication of who gave the “orders.” At the time, Xu Xiangqian had passed away, but Li Xiannian was still alive. Li was irate and wrote a letter to the CPHRO immediately, urging them to revise relevant paragraphs in the book. Li wrote harshly: “‘Orders!’ ‘Orders!’ Whose in the hell’s orders were they? I wrote a report on the issue of the WRA and now it is kept in the CPHRO. Are you too ignorant to know the report was there? Or do you pretend to be ignorant?”83 One solution Li
suggested was to add several words to the book, pointing out explicitly that “the WRA carried out the Central Military Committee’s orders.” Ultimately, the CPHRO asked the publisher to withdraw all copies that had been delivered to distribution companies and bookstores and revised the paragraph according to Li’s demand.84
Despite the interventions on the part of Li and the CPHRO, the new interpretation failed to replace the orthodox one and become the official version of the WRA narratives. Rather than following Li’s major points of view, the writers of official History tried their best to imply that the WRA had violated the Party Center’s directives. They achieved this goal by two main methods: one was to list
82 Xu Zhanquan, interview, 2013.
83 Yuan Lishi 原立是 (A penname of Xia Yuli 夏宇立), Xuese liming血色黎明 (Bloody dawn). Hong Kong: Jinling shushe chuban gongsi 金陵書社出版公司, 2008, p. 8.
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selected primary materials without drawing any conclusions, but the materials listed suggested that the WRA disobeyed the Party Center’s orders and any reader who was familiar with the historical background would easily grasp this suggestion. The authoritative version of the CCP’s military history published in 1987 adopted this method.85 The second was to display materials that might
support the new interpretation in official publications, but to exclude the new interpretation’s conclusions. For example, the official version of the Chronological Biography of Mao publicized Mao’s agreement to dispatch troops to secure the Soviet Union’s assistance and also included the telegrams Mao sent to the troops on the west bank of the Yellow River in order to name them the “Western Route Army,” but refused to build any connection between Mao’s intention to secure assistance and the WRA’s military operations.86 Such narratives in official Party
History were confusing, because they admitted generally that the WRA was supervised by the Party Center, while implying that the WRA commanders had disobeyed the Party Center’s directives; further, they admitted the authenticity of the supporting materials issued by the advocates of the new interpretation, but refused to accept the new interpretation’s explanations of these materials. Meanwhile, control of the WRA archives became stricter and stricter, and the cables that had been used as supporting materials by advocates of the new interpretation and by their opponents have been inaccessible since the 1990s. In contrast to the cautious accounts in official Party History, when matters concerned the evaluation of particular commanders, the WRA always was commended highly. For example, after Xu Xiangqian died in 1989, both the obituary and articles describing his life that were published in the People’s Daily
spoke highly of the WRA. One article stated:
After the three front armies joined in Huining, the Central Military Committee ordered a part of the Fourth Front Army to cross the Yellow River to conduct the Ningxia Campaign Plan. Later [Xu Xiangqian] became the chief director of the Western Route Army
85 Junshi kexue yuan junshi lishi yanjiusuo 軍事科學院軍事歷史研究所 (Military History Institute of PLA Military Science Academy), ed., Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zhanshi 中國人民解放軍戰史
(Military history of the PLA). Beijing: Junshi kexue chubanshe 軍事科學出版社, 1987, pp. 357-369. 86 Zhonggong zhongyang wenxian yanjiushi 中共中央文獻研究室 (The CCP Central Literature Research Center), ed., Mao Zedong nianpu 毛澤東年譜 (Chronological biography of Mao Zedong), Volume 1. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe 人民出版社, Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe 中央文獻出版 社, 1993, pp. 592-608.
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according to the Central Military Committee’s orders. [Xu] led the troops marching westwards and fought with the enemy in the Hexi Corridor. [Their operations] effectively assisted the military operations on the east bank of the Yellow River.87
This evaluation was actually a concise version of the new interpretation of the WRA. Similar statements were repeated again and again on public occasions that commemorated Xu’s 100th and 110th birthdays.88 The history that had once
troubled the old marshal became a hard-earned victory. Other WRA commanders, including Li Xiannian and Li Zhuoran also received positive posthumous evaluations and the statements in their official biographies were a consolation to their families.89
In summary, generally speaking, the CCP’s official narratives of the WRA dealt with this historical event by concealing criticism of it behind the exhibition of a huge number of historical facts, while also praising the relevant people’s contributions to this historical event openly. This is still a common way that the CCP deals with intra-Party controversies.
Four Interpretations of the WRA
By the time the CCP made the changes above to official Party History, there had been four interpretations of the WRA in total. The first, which is referred to as “the orthodox interpretation” in this thesis, was created by Mao and his writers. The major point of this interpretation is that Zhang ordered the WRA to go to Gansu to further his own ambitions, and the WRA’s defeat was because of Zhang’s erroneous political line. The second interpretation emerged almost simultaneously. The WRA commanders held this point of view, deemphasizing the relationship
87 “Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun de dizaozhe zhiyi Xu Xiangqian shishi 中國人民解放軍的締造者之
一徐向前逝世” (One of the founders of the PLA, Xu Xiangqian, passed away), Renmin ribao 人民日 報, on September 21, 1990, p. 1.
88 See Jiang Zemin 江澤民, “Jiang Zemin zai jinian Xu Xiangqian danchen yibai zhounian zuotanhui shang de jianghua 江澤民在紀念徐向前誕辰一百週年座談會上的講話” (Jiang Zemin’s speech at the Memorial Meeting for Xu Xiangqian’s 100th Anniversary), Xinhua wang 新華網 (Xinhua News Agency Online)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/news/2001-11/07/content_104289.htm (last visited on May 9, 2015). 89 For senior leaders one of their major concerns in the Reform Era was to have their “historical flaws” removed when they were still alive. In all of the Party’s previous political movements, the WRA had been used as an excuse to purge senior commanders. Thus the disconnection of this historical event with the so-called “Zhang Guotao Line” would help them to secure a much more politically privileged position. This goal was achieved when Li Xiannian’s report was filed in the Party’s archives. Li Erbing said that in conversations with Marshal Xu he once commented that Xu had a perfect life and the only flaw was the assessment on the WRA; Xu agreed with him. Li Erbing, interview, 2013.
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between the WRA and the so-called “Zhang Guotao Line,” and emphasizing instead various reasons for the WRA’s defeat. The conflicts between the two interpretations above focused on the issue of the definition of the WRA, rather than on facts such as who gave the order to establish it. These relevant events happened not long before, so at the time, the factual problems that later bothered researchers were not problems at all. As was presented in Chapter 2, there was intense competition between these two interpretations in 1937 and 1938, and the orthodox interpretation prevailed.
At the beginning of the Reform Era, the third interpretation was raised by former WRA commanders and their aides. Although this interpretation contained considerable similarities with the second, a major innovation was that, for the first time, the advocates released cables that had been sent between the Party Center and the WRA, which provoked a direct challenge to the orthodox interpretation. To respond to this challenge, the official organ for Party History created a fourth interpretation. This interpretation agreed with Mao’s verdicts on the WRA, but was more flexible, making concessions on several points that some significant figures, such as Li Xiannian, demanded be changed, while insisting on other narratives. During the Mao Era, the orthodox interpretation remained unchallenged, while in the Reform Era, neither the “new interpretation” nor the “new-official interpretation” was able to secure a decisive victory. They compromised with each other and both were included in official Party History [Table 4-1].
The case of the WRA proves that Party historiography in the Reform Era was more complicated than that in the Mao Era. What did not change is that Party historiography still reflected intra-Party politics and, as a result, exploring Party historiography was still an effective way to understand the CCP’s political preferences and culture.
Conclusion
This chapter has focused on the emergence and resolution of the issue of the WRA in the 1980s, and answered the following two questions: why such debates on Party History took place in the early years of the Reform Era, and how the top leadership eliminated such problems. The answers to these two questions are critical in understanding the transformation of the Party historiography of the Mao Era into that of the Reform Era.
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Party history primarily for two reasons. One was to make official Party History consistent with the new policies, while the other was to maintain Mao’s image as a great leader. Leaders at the time believed that by so doing, different factions within the Party could be mollified. Guided by this principle, the Party invested considerable effort in reinvestigating, reevaluating, and rewriting Party history. Although the leaders soon found that this rewriting had, to some extent, moved beyond their control and tried to stop it, there were already unexpected challenges to existing official narratives, and conflicts among supporters of different interpretations of a certain historical issue became a serious problem that the Party leadership needed to address.
The leadership’s principle in dealing with these conflicts was a principle created and practiced by Deng: “It is better to be vague than meticulous.” Just like Mao, Deng was also a strongman who exerted strict control over Party historiography, but the method he adopted was different from that of Mao. Mao controlled Party historiography in a prescriptive way, telling historians and writers what they could write. Deng’s method was relatively passive. His leadership attended to every sensitive historical issue, but at the same time, attempted to avoid changing Mao’s interpretations of Party history, and even listed issues that should not be discussed. In this regard, the role that Party history played had changed in the Reform Era. Mao used Party history as a powerful tool in intra-Party power struggles, but Deng viewed Party history as leverage to help him maintain the balance between different interest groups within the Party and avoid conflicts among factions. For this reason, even though many so-called taboos of history (or “black holes”) were eliminated, and previously unknown historical facts were revealed to the public, the Party leadership still exerted close supervision of studies of these issues.
As for the issue of the WRA, Deng’s goal was achieved to some extent, because both sides accepted the contradictory official narratives. This consensus, however, was built on the base of a small group of determined participants who held high positions. The balance between advocates of these two conflicting interpretations was unsteady and tentative. As the following chapters will show, since the late 1990s, by which time most of the first generation leaders had died and the then current Party leaders increasingly had less personal experience of events in Party history, the balance has gradually broken down and more drastic debates on a number of sensitive historical issues have staged a comeback. There is an old
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Chinese saying: “When one’s coffin is closed, the evaluation on one is conclusive”
(gaiguan dinglun 蓋棺定論). Historiography, however, especially that of the CCP,
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Table 4-1 Comparison of the Four Interpretations of the WRA
Mao Era Time Reform Era
Orthodox Interpretation
Alternative Interpretation
Interpretations New Interpretation New-official Interpretation Mao; Kai Feng;
Hu Qiaomu; Tian Jiaying; ⋯⋯
Zhang Guotao; Chen Changhao; Xu Xiangqian; ⋯⋯
Writers Zhu Yu; Li Erbing;
Li Xianian’s secretaries; ⋯⋯
OCPHR;
The Military Science Academy; ⋯⋯
The Party Centre The Fourth Front
Army
Supporters Chen Yun; Li Xiannian;
Xu Xiangqian;
The Fourth Front Army veterans ⋯⋯
Yang Shangkun; Hu Qiaomu;
The First Front Army veterans; ⋯⋯
Conclusions only Conclusions only Method of
arguing Provided a huge amount of evidence Provided a huge amount of evidence To establish a new
base for Zhang Guotao
To conduct the Ningxia Campaign Plan
Purpose To build a connection
with the Soviet Union (“open an international route”) and gain military assistance
Ostensibly to carry out the Party Centre’s plan, but actually to serve Zhang Guotao’s ambitions Ordered by Zhang
Guotao.
The Party Center did not know.
According to the Red Army Headquarters and the Party Center’s directives
Crossed the Yellow River
Ordered by the Party Center (Mao)
The Party Center had to approve their
operations because they had already crossed the Yellow River.
Commanded by Zhang Guotao
Commanded by the Red Army
Headquarters and the Party Center
Military operation
Commanded by the Party Center (Mao)
Some orders were issued by the Party Center, but the WRA did not carry out these orders in the right way The WRA carried
out the “Zhang Guotao Line”. The WRA did not overcome Zhang Guotao’s erroneous thoughts. (
Enemy had much stronger forces; The “United Front” method did not work on Ma brothers; Harsh conditions in Gansu;
Tactical mistakes; ⋯⋯
Reason of failure Harsh conditions in
Gansu；
Enemy had much stronger forces; The Center’s orders were changeable; underestimated the difficulties (which was a manifestation of Zhang Guotao’s errors) ⋯⋯
The WRA commanders had no confidence to defeat enemies by themselves; When confronting difficulties they chose to retreat; ⋯⋯
The WRA was Zhang Guotao’s “running dog.”
The WRA was loyal to the Party Center rather than Zhang Guotao.
Relationship between the WRA and Zhang
The WRA was influenced by Zhang, but had nothing to do with the so-called “Zhang Guotao Line”.
The WRA were Zhang’s supporters, and their operations were consistent with Zhang’s political line.
The final
bankruptcy of the Zhang Guotao Line
N/A Evaluation An indivisible part of
the overall victory
The WRA’s operations had caused serious loss for the Party.
Official
interpretation of the WRA in the Mao Era.
A dissenting opinion in 1937 and 1938; Disappeared from records after the early 1940s
Influence A popular
interpretation of the WRA in contemporary China;
Some of arguments are included in the official Party History.
Held by some of authoritative organs
Fig. 4-1 Reference Materials for Party History
(photo by author on August 1, 2013).
Fig. 4-2 The People’s Daily of the 19th of
September 1977, with Xu Xiangqian’s article on lower part of the 1st page.
Fig. 4-3 Cover of Li Xiannian’s report (photo by author on August 1, 2013).
Fig. 4-5 Deng Xiaoping’s comment on Li Xiannian’s report (photo by author on August 1, 2013).
Fig. 4-4 Chen Yun’s letter to Li Xiannian (photo by author on August 1, 2013).