The turning point in the writing of the history of the 1911 Revolution, when Mao’s narrative became dominant, occurred on the thirty-first anniversary of the Wuchang Uprising: 10 October 1942. The first stages of the Rectification movement in Yan’an had been completed, and the CCP was preparing for more. The Rectification Movement continued into 1944, but had substantially altered the CCP in Yan’an by 1942, as the historiography of the 1911 Revolution shows. The Liberation Daily came under Mao’s control during the Rectification Movement in 1942, and Mao wasted no time converting it into his mouthpiece, prohibiting opposition opinions while teaching his master narrative of history and Mao Zedong Thought to CCP cadres.98 The histories of the 1911 Revolution written in the 10 October 1942 issue of the
Liberation Daily display Mao’s dominance over the CCP.
97 Ibid, 29-30.
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Many Party members of various ranks published articles in the 10 October 1942 edition of the Liberation Daily, marking the largest celebration of the 1911 Revolution, in print by the CCP, to that date. The publication of multiple articles from many different authors was an example of learning through practice. Mao and his supporters expected the authors of the various works to follow Mao’s master narrative by employing Mao Zedong Thought through the themes of the United Front, Chinese uniqueness, class analysis and periodisation in their coverage of the 1911 Revolution. Their statements displayed the authors’ understanding of and adherence to Mao Zedong Thought and validated Mao’s control of the CCP. The 10 October 1942 issue of the Liberation Daily also served as an example for those outside of Yan’an, as yet untouched by the Rectification Movement, of how a rectified Party ought to look and behave.
The United Front was the most prominent theme throughout the 10 October 1942 issue of the Liberation Daily, reflecting its importance to the validation of Mao’s leadership over the CCP. Two days prior to 10 October, the Liberation Daily printed an editorial which set the theme of the United Front for the 10 October edition. The editorial stated that, “The Revolutionary Alliance included all classes in a United Front organisation; from this we can see that the United Front of the Revolutionary Alliance already exhibited its effectiveness in the Chinese revolution…. It is evident that the establishment of a United Front is beneficial for the Revolution and that the splitting apart of a United Front can bring only harm to the Revolution”.99 The main editorial from the 10th echoed this sentiment: “On this the 31st
anniversary of October 10th, we take up the unfulfilled project of these martyrs, and loyally
implement ‘Unity in the war of resistance, unity in building the country’”.100 The United Front
was the lesson and legacy of the 1911 Revolution, and the continued Chinese revolution could
99 “Bianfu tongzhi fanjia yi ri jinian Shuangshijie quanshi xuan guoqi juxing qingzhu 边府通知房价一日
纪念双十节全市悬国旗举行庆祝 [The Border Region Government Announces a Holiday to Celebrate Double Ten Day, the Whole City Raises the Flag in Celebration]”, Jiefang ribao 8 October 1942, 2.
100 “Jinian Xinhai Geming 纪念辛亥革命 [Commemorating the 1911 Revolution]”, Jiefang ribao 10
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succeed only by following the United Front. Zhu De 朱德 (1886-1976)101 also wrote on the
most important lesson learned from the 1911 Revolution and its failure:
[Be] dedicated to the United Front. General Cai [E] 蔡锷 (1882-1916)102 was…
regarded by the Revolutionary Alliance members and other personages of no party affiliation as publicly minded and incorruptible, never working for his own profit, and the Revolutionary Alliance comrades all worked together with him to face the situation. Yunnan’s new independence, the success of the armies, all stemmed from the various parties and non-affiliated persons working together.103
Zhu reimagined his own history of working with Cai E to fit into Mao’s master narrative and the theme of the United Front during the 1911 Revolution. Lin Boqu林伯渠 (1886-1960),104
another veteran of the 1911 Revolution, added simply that, “The Chinese revolution teaches us that when the United Front is accomplished, the revolution succeeds. If not, then [the revolution] fails”.105 These authors presented the United Front and Mao Zedong Thought as
the unifying ideology for China and for the CCP, justifying Mao’s leadership of the Party. This issue of the Liberation Daily, dedicated to remembering the 1911 Revolution, made it clear that the United Front was a theory developed from China’s revolutionary situation, and that Mao’s development of the United Front theory established Mao’s credentials as a theorist and the paramount leader of the CCP.
101 Zhu De was a participant in the 1911 Revolution and one of the most important military leaders of
the CCP from the 1927 Jiangxi Soviet through to his death.
102 Cai E, also known as Cai Songpo 蔡松坡, was a leader and general of the 1911 Revolution in Yunnan,
though not a member of the Revolutionary Alliance. Cai opposed Yuan Shikai and led the Second Revolution in Yunnan as well.
103 Zhu De “Xinhai huiyi 辛亥回忆 [Recollections from 1911]”, Jiefang ribao 10 October 1942, 2. 104 Lin Boqu was a participant in in the 1911 Revolution and later a member of the CCP. Lin was close
associate of Sun Yat-sen and an early adopter of Marxism as well as one of the oldest participants of the Long March.
105 “Lin Lao tan Xinhai Geming 林老谈辛亥革命 [Old Lin Talks about the 1911 Revolution]”, Jiefang ribao
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The other major theme in this issue of the Liberation Daily was periodisation through contradictions. The main reason for this was the connection between the periodisation of New Democracy and the United Front in Mao Zedong Thought. The era of New Democracy was a carefully defined and demarcated period of history. Authors who agreed to structure their historical narratives around the periodisation of New Democracy did so to show their allegiance to Mao’s master narrative of history and Mao Zedong Thought. The main editorial of the day illustrated this:
The 1911 Revolution occurred during the age when global capitalism had already entered its imperialist stage, the age just before the global proletarian revolution, so during this time China’s bourgeois democratic revolution could not become a part of the global bourgeois revolution, and could only go on to become part of the global proletarian revolution. At the time, however, [the global proletarian] revolution was still only fermenting, and had not started…. These objective circumstances made it impossible for the 1911 Revolution not to fail midway through. This shows that the backwards Chinese bourgeois democratic revolution cannot be completed under old democracy, it must surpass this boundary, and New Democracy must complete it.106
The contradiction between imperialism and the Chinese nation meant that China experienced a stage in history unique to Chinese circumstances. The next day, Fan Wenlan 范文澜 (1893- 1969)107 also wrote, “The course of the Chinese revolution must be separated into two steps…
before the October Revolution was the old democratic revolution. After the October Revolution is the New Democratic revolution. So, from the 1840 Opium war, through the Taiping Rebellion, the Hundred Days Reform, the Sino-French War, the Sino-Japanese War and
106 “Jinian Xinhai Geming”.
107 Fan Wenlan was a member of the CCP and a prominent Marxist historian and educator. He worked
in the Central Propaganda Department and the university in Yan’an during the war before becoming head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Modern History Office after the war. He was persecuted and driven to suicide during the Cultural Revolution.
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all the way to the 1911 Revolution, all belong to the phase of the old democratic
revolution”.108 Through these and comparable articles, the Liberation Daily highlighted the
periods of history which led to New Democracy, making this the template for later periodisation. Periodisation did not stand alone as an end in itself: it was one part of the argument for the necessity of the United Front and the spread of Mao Zedong Thought. The new arrangement of classes defined the United Front of the New Democratic period, with the proletariat, peasantry and parts of the bourgeoisie working together to overthrow imperialists and their allied feudal forces, as part of the global revolution against imperialism.
The 10 October 1942 issue of Liberation Daily and the chorus of articles all agreeing on the same narrative showed that Mao’s master narrative of history united the Party in a belief in the United Front and Mao Zedong Thought. Mao’s master narrative of history created a periodisation of history and a system of class analysis that argued for the unique
circumstances of the Chinese revolution. Mao emphasised the necessity and theoretical soundness of the United Front through the creation of the period of New Democracy. In this, Mao defined the nature of the world prior to and after the Soviet October Revolution. United ideologically, as showcased in the 10 October 1942 edition of the Liberation Daily, the Party proved itself united politically under Mao’s leadership. CCP members of many ranks and levels of experience, even ones that had previously not subscribed to Mao’s narratives, now all understood and applied Mao Zedong Thought and Mao’s master narrative of history. The historical narrative of the 1911 Revolution presented in the 10 October 1942 edition of the Liberation Daily was both a test and an example. As a test, it determined the effectiveness of the Rectification Movement by finding how many in the CCP followed Mao’s master narrative of history, Mao Zedong Thought and the leadership of Mao Zedong. As an example, it showed
108 Fan Wenlan, “Kaishi le yu jieshu le jiu Minzhuzhuyi geming de Xinhai Geming 开始了与结束了旧民主
主义的辛亥革命 [The 1911 Revolution, Start and End of the Old Democratic Revolution]”, Jiefang ribao 11 October 1942, 4.
67 other base areas what to expect from Rectification.