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The Civic World of International Communism: Taiwanese communists and the Comintern (1921–1931)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2012

ANNA BELOGUROVA
ANNA BELOGUROVA*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of British Columbia Email: belogur@interchange.ubc.ca
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Abstract

The short history of the Taiwanese Communist Party (Taiwan gongchandang 台 灣 共 產 黨) (1928–1931) offers a window into the negotiative polity of international communism during the Third Period (1928–1934). The Party was established during the time when the Comintern intensified its operations in colonies and promoted the organization of communist parties there. Its demise was the result of government suppression that occurred as a reaction to their increased public activity in 1931, allegedly at the direction of the Comintern. This paper examines the Comintern's role in the Taiwanese communist movement and shows that the Taiwanese communists were active agents (rather than passive tools) in their relationship with the Comintern.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 6 , November 2012 , pp. 1602 - 1632
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Introduction

Taiwan's branch of the Japanese Communist Party—the Taiwanese Communist PartyFootnote 1—was part of an East Asian network which included Chinese, Japanese, and Korean communists, and was therefore a hybrid of the Chinese and Japanese communist movements. Despite having just 36 members,Footnote 2 it nevertheless functioned as a consolidating force for leftist nationalists in Taiwan's Cultural Association (Wenhua xiehui 文 化 協 會) and Peasant Union (Nongmin zuhe 農 民 組 合), which had thousands of members. An analysis of the relationship between it and the Comintern suggests that Moscow played a rather modest role in the Party. Building on Boltanski and Thévenot's concept of the justification mode of the Civic World,Footnote 3 this paper suggests that the Party's creative submission to their supervisor in international communism offers a window into the ‘Civic World’ that was created by the Comintern and embraced by revolutionaries in East Asia. This communist ‘Civic World’ had the qualities of an international public sphere, as the Comintern's Taiwan policy originated in the Taiwanese Party and was shaped by local communist—not the Comintern's— agendas, but was nonetheless communicated across national borders to a community of shared interest.

The role of the Comintern in the collapse of the Party occupies a central place in its historiography. Conclusions that the Comintern's interfered with intra-party conflict and imposed a policy of radicalization that was not appropriate to the conditions in Taiwan, which led to the exposure and eventual demise of the Party, are based on a ‘Letter to the Formosa Communists’ from the Comintern. Seized by the Japanese police during the arrests that took place in Taiwan in 1931,Footnote 4 this letter encouraged the Party to conduct more active operations. The Comintern's involvement also became evident from statements regarding contact with Comintern representatives and their directives in Party members’ testimonies after their arrest (and the Japanese police analysis that was based on them), as well as in their memoirs written decades later. These sources present a familiar picture of the Comintern's relations with communist parties in the Far East during the Third Period (1928–1934). In this context, the Comintern is portrayed as having uncontested agency, suppressing local leaders’ initiatives in pursuit of Soviet national interests, remaining ignorant of local conditions and, as a result, pursuing inadequate policies. Thus, the Comintern is held responsible for the parties’ debacles, whether it exerted excessive control or paid insufficient attention.Footnote 5 Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, new sources and perspectives have challenged this Cold War ‘Moscow-centric’ view of international communism which reduces both the radicalist turn of the Comintern and its interactions with local parties to a simplistic ‘impact-response’ model. These more recent interpretations examine the involvement of the Comintern and the local communist debacles in light of the interaction between Moscow's strategy and local communist tactics, sometimes to the point of manipulation of the former by the latter.Footnote 6 As such, they show the limited power of the Comintern over local partiesFootnote 7 and consider the ‘blame-Moscow’ historiography of such parties’ relationship with the Comintern to be the product of later relations with Moscow, after the demise of the Comintern.Footnote 8 While the agency of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese communists in their relations with the Comintern has been acknowledged,Footnote 9 the Taiwanese case has not been explored. The significance of the Party is to be found not in its failure, but in its reflection of a pattern of agency that occurred in communist parties across East Asia, and in particular in the Japanese and Korean communist movements.

The sources for this study reveal continuities in the Comintern's relationship with the Taiwanese communists, from the first Marxist societies in the early 1920s to the eventual collapse of the Comintern-affiliated Party in 1931. This paper is based on the Taiwanese communists’ reports; the 1930–1931 letters by Weng Zesheng (翁 澤 生) (alias Ong Ding-chuan 翁 定 川), the Party–Comintern liaison with the Far Eastern Bureau of the Comintern in Shanghai;Footnote 10 Far Eastern Bureau directives and correspondence; reminiscences of the Taiwanese communists; and Japanese and Shanghai Municipal Police materials.Footnote 11 Boltanski and Thévenot's approach is built on in order to shed light on the Party leaders’ rationale for evoking Comintern rhetoric to condemn their rivals within the Party. This rationale was the ‘justification imperative’ that rival Party leaders were subjected to when facing each others’ criticism in a conflict situation (which is explained in the next section) and searching for a justified agreement on Party policy.Footnote 12 As such, we will see the agency of Party members not as Moscow's pawns, but as actors capable of making their own choices, sometimes—indeed—bad choices.

Overview

The Party was founded on 15 April 1928 in the Shanghai French Concession. Conflict between Xie Xuehong (謝 雪 紅) and Weng Zesheng and arrests ten days later in Shanghai, which scattered Party members across Taiwan, South China, and Tokyo, resulted in a growing confrontation between Taiwan-based leaders and émigrés. In Taiwan's Cultural Association and Peasant Union, Party members occupied leading positions, promoted communist ideas, and attracted new members by enrolment—first in open and then in secret—study societies (yan jiu hui 研 究 會).Footnote 13 They organized rural protests and petitions and aspired to create an all-Taiwan labour organization.Footnote 14 The Party relied on donations from landowning Party members such as Lin Rigao (林 日 高), who was based in Taiwan, and merchant fellow travellers such as Li Shanhuo (李 山 火), who was based in Southern Fujian, as well as on the profits from the International Book Store (Guoji shuju 國 際 書 局) in Taihoku (Taibei), which was run by Xie Xuehong.Footnote 15 Arrests in February and April 1929 forced the Peasant Union underground, reduced its membership from 11,410 to 9,369Footnote 16 and destroyed the Party's Tokyo branch (Dongjing tebie zhibu 東 京 特 別 支 部). Although the Party regularly sought guidance from the Japanese Communist Party, the Chinese Communist Party, and the Comintern, it was between April 1929 and May 1930 that the Party achieved full control over the Peasant Union in its own right and gained the necessary leverage to implement its decision regarding the dissolution of the Cultural Association.Footnote 17 However, the intra-party crisis continued. In the spring of 1930, Xie dispatched Lin Rigao, a Central Committee member, to Shanghai to establish a connection with the Comintern, but Lin was unsuccessful in obtaining either guidance or financial aid. He was frustrated also by both Xie's and Weng's criticisms and quit the Party after his return from Shanghai. He was followed by another Central Committee member, Zhuang Chunhuo (莊 春 火), thus leaving Xie as the only remaining Central Committee member in Taiwan. In May 1930, when the Far Eastern Bureau called for the Taiwanese representative for the Fifth Congress of the Profintern in Moscow (15–30 July 1930), the Party was unable to find a worker to attend and chose the Peasant Union member Chen Dexing (陳 德 興) instead.Footnote 18 Chen only went as far as Shanghai, where he met with a Far Eastern Bureau cadre and Weng. After returning to Taiwan, he established the Reform Alliance (Gaige tongmeng 改 革 同 盟) in January 1931 which ousted Xie from the Party leadership and took the already radicalized policy (which had been adopted by Xie in October 1930 in light of the economic downturn)Footnote 19 and criticism from Shanghai to the next level of radicalization and visibility. The Reform Alliance aspired to conduct party propaganda openly, including voicing support for the atayal (泰 雅 族) uprising in October 1930. Between May 1930, when Weng became the Comintern's Party liaison, and the Party's Second Conference, which took place from 31 May–3 June 1931 and during which Xie was expelled from the Party and the Reform Alliance denounced, a number of ‘Comintern representatives’ arrived in Taiwan. By 1932, all Party members had been arrested.

Below, we shall examine how the Party's story unfolded, including the Comintern's involvement in the early Taiwanese study societies, in its establishment, and collapse. We shall compare the Comintern and the Japanese Communist Party directives with the texts by the Taiwanese communists, and we will see that both were drafted on the basis of materials and suggestions provided by the Taiwanese communists.

From study societies to the Party

Like the Chinese Communist Party, the Party evolved out of a network of Marxist study societies as well as Taiwanese student and emigrant intellectual associations in Taiwan, Beijing, Shanghai, Southern Fujian, and Tokyo during the 1920s. Although these societies, like those of the early Chinese Communist Party or anarchists, were frequently dissolved under government pressure or due to lack of funds or members or a sense of purpose, eventually new societies emerged around the same core individuals. These organizations published materials and sent members to work in Taiwan, and future Party leaders in Japan and China would continue this pattern.Footnote 20 As of 1921, some of these groups occasionally received financial support from the Comintern, including members of the Tokyo Taiwanese Students’ Association (Taiwan qingnian hui 台 灣 青 年 會) such as Cai Huiru (蔡 惠 如) and Peng Huaying (彭 華 英) in Shanghai.Footnote 21 The earliest report that can be found in the Comintern archive regarding Taiwan's political situation dates back to August 1923.Footnote 22 The Equality Society (Pingshe 平 社) was established in Shanghai in November 1923. In 1924 one of its founders, a Chinese Communist Party member named Xu Naichang (許 乃 昌), became the first Taiwanese to study at the Moscow Communist University of the Toilers of the East (Kommunisticheskyi Universitet Trudyaschihsya Vostoka) on the recommendation of Chen Duxiu.Footnote 23 Three Pingshe members would, within the next four years, participate in founding the Party: Cai Xiaoqian (蔡 孝 乾);Footnote 24 Korean Yŏ Un-hyŏng (呂 運 亭), a prominent nationalist leader and a member of the Korean provisional government in exile;Footnote 25 and the Japanese communist Sano Gaku (佐 野 學), who organized Taiwanese students in Tokyo and Shanghai and worked in the Far Eastern Bureau from April to June 1929.Footnote 26

In May 1924, members of the dissolved Pingshe established the first united communist party from Taiwanese groups located in Shanghai, Beijing, and Xiamen. According to Xu's report to the Comintern prepared on 27 October 1924, Chihuadang (赤 華 黨) was ‘more communist’ than Pingshe and consisted of 13 workers and 36 intellectuals. The ‘Red Celestial Party’, as Chihuadang was translated by the Comintern, planned to establish connections with the Japanese Communist Party and to extend their network in Taiwan, but it was dissolved within a few months. Some party members were graduates of Waseda University (早 稻 田 大 學) and the Taiwan Commercial College (台 灣 商 業 學 校) and worked as journalists in Taiwan minbao (台 灣 民 報). They spread communist ideas through Taiwanese study societies and associations. Xu reported to the Comintern that the communist movement in Taiwan was young and that it had made many mistakes. Xu further requested help and guidance from the Comintern and Japanese Communist Party.Footnote 27 There is no evidence of any Comintern intervention in Chihuadang, but in July 1924, contact was made between some ‘Soviet citizens’ and members of the Anti-Japanese Taiwanese-Korean Society (台 韓 同 志 會) in Shanghai.Footnote 28 By July 1925, in Peking, Xu and Xie Lianqing (謝 廉 清), who had also studied in Moscow, were receiving Soviet financial support.Footnote 29 By the mid-1920s, some Taiwanese were studying at Shanghai University, a communist hotbed at the time.Footnote 30 According to Zhao Qingyun (趙 清 云), a Taiwanese student who was studying in Moscow in 1930, some Taiwanese students were paid a stipend ‘to study the liberation movement’ by the Guomindang government while there.Footnote 31

As for the Chinese Communist Party, the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925 was also a turning point for the Taiwanese immigrants’ movement. To the amusement of her radical male compatriots, the participation of women in the revolution was promoted by a semi-literate Taiwanese woman, Xie Xuehong, who had fled her husband, twice attempted suicide, and briefly studied at Shanghai University.Footnote 32 With the help of her friend, Lin Mushun (林 木 順), she wrote a letter to Zhejiang ribao (浙 江 日 報) in which she suggested that the retrocession of Taiwan to China should be added to demands regarding the return of concessions and to the abolition of unequal treaties.Footnote 33 Not long thereafter, in December 1925, Xie and Lin, who were now Communist Youth League and Guomindang members, started their studies at the Moscow Communist University of the Toilers of the East. Footnote 34 Both were dismissed after a little over a year—Xie for health reasons and Lin for poor study results. According to University references, Xie was able to work independently and ‘to lead’; Lin was characterized as being not sufficiently disciplined, but nevertheless capable of doing ‘practical lower level [party] work’.Footnote 35 The Comintern circular concerning sending Lin and Xie back home with other Japanese students reveals no indication as to whether or not they were explicitly dispatched to establish a communist party.Footnote 36

As in the case of the Chinese Communist Party in mainland China,Footnote 37 the Comintern accelerated the organization of a unified party from within a network of autonomous Taiwanese social science study societies and student associations, both in Taiwan (the Cultural Association and Peasant Union) and beyond (Shanghai, Xiamen, and Tokyo).Footnote 38 In Shanghai, Xie; Lin; Weng Zesheng, a Taiwanese Chinese Communist Party cadre who since 1927 had organized the Taiwanese revolutionary movement in Fujian;Footnote 39 as well as Japanese and Korean communists such as the Japanese Communist Party representative in Shanghai, Nabeiyama Sadachika (鍋 山 貞 親),Footnote 40 and Yŏ Un-hyŏng did the preparatory work for the establishment of the Party. As the Japanese Communist Party was preoccupied with parliamentary elections that were taking place in Japan, it delegated the organization of the Party to the Chinese communists and to the Japanese Communist Party's Comintern adviser, K. Yanson.Footnote 41 The Japanese Communist Party's limited help in providing political and organizational programmesFootnote 42 could be interpreted as either illustrating the standpoint taken by Japanese Communist Party member Takahashi Sadaki (高 橋 貞 樹) at the Sixth Congress of the Comintern, or as indicating a lack of interest.Footnote 43 He advocated for the assistance and preparation of cadres for colonial parties rather than for direct leadership. With regard to the Comintern's contribution, Yŏ Un-hyŏng chose the location (a Russian-run photo studio) and attended the conference.Footnote 44 He also put Xie in touch with an American from the International Red Aid (most likely James Dolsen),Footnote 45 and Xie reported to him.Footnote 46

According to Party secretary Lin Mushun's report to the Comintern, the founding conference of the 18-member Party was held under the ‘indirect’ (jianjie 間 接) leadership of the Comintern and the ‘direct’ (zhijie 直 接) leadership of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.Footnote 47 Eight of the ten Taiwanese communists present at the conference on 15 April 1928 were Chinese Communist Party members,Footnote 48 and Chinese Communist Party representative Ren Bishi (任 弼 時) acted as chair.Footnote 49 In their letter to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Lin Mushun, Lin Rigao, Xie Xuehong, and Weng Zesheng emphasized the strong bonds between the two parties and expressed gratitude to the Chinese Communist Party for their help and guidance, as well as their hopes for more of the same in the future.Footnote 50 Although the Party was to maintain contact with the Comintern through the Japanese Communist Party,Footnote 51 and its tactics were drawn from the Japanese Communist Party's ideology and experience, the Chinese Communist Party was willing to provide—and the Party to accept—the Chinese Communist Party's patronage.

The conflict at the founding conference between the two potentially suitable party leaders—an experienced Chinese Communist Party cadre Weng Zesheng and the Moscow-trained Xie Xuehong—eventually grew into a split within the Party and determined the outcome of its relationship with the Comintern. Moreover, it tore apart the Party from the inside. Xie accused Weng, Pan Qinxin (潘 欽 信), Cai Xiaoqian (蔡 孝 乾), Xie Yuye (謝 玉 葉), and Hong Chaozong (洪 朝 宗) of anarchism. As a result, neither Xie nor Weng became Central Committee members, but only alternates.Footnote 52 The arrests of five out of 18 Party members, the confiscation of Party documents, as well as financial difficulties, resulted in some Party members fleeing Taiwan and those who remained not undertaking any activity.Footnote 53 For a while, neither the Comintern in Moscow nor the Japanese Communist PartyFootnote 54 nor even all Taiwanese communistsFootnote 55 were aware of the establishment of the Party.Footnote 56 As three out of five Central Committee members fled Taiwan, Xie became de facto head of the party organization in Taiwan.

Japanese Communist Party leadership

As a result of this situation, in the summer of 1928, Party members from Taiwan, Shanghai, and Tokyo went to Japan seeking directives from the Japanese Communist Party. Lin Mushun established the Party's Tokyo branchFootnote 57 and reported to the Comintern about the Japanese Communist Party's decision to assign practical work to ‘Taiwan's Central Committee’ and important decisions to the Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party and to the Central Committee representative in Tokyo. The Central Committee Party representative in Tokyo was Lin Mushun himself.Footnote 58 When Xie dispatched Lin Rigao to Tokyo to obtain Japanese Communist Party missives, Lin obtained them from Lin Mushun.Footnote 59 Weng Zesheng also travelled to Tokyo in January 1929.Footnote 60

According to Lin Rigao's report to the Comintern (see below), the Party received Japanese Communist Party directives for eight months (from August 1928 to March 1929).Footnote 61 However, there is a close textual affinity between the publications of the Party's émigrés,Footnote 62 Japanese Communist Party directives, reports and directives that Party members sent from Tokyo to Taiwan,Footnote 63 and Weng Zesheng's criticisms of the Party in his letters to the Comintern. This finding suggests that the so-called Japanese Communist Party directives were in fact produced by the Party's émigré leaders—Lin Mushun, Weng Zesheng, and Chen Laiwang (陳 來 旺)—rather than by the Japanese communists. They criticized the Party for the following: separation from the masses as the consequence of the lack of workers and peasants in the Party (as well the lack of effort made to involve them) and their lack of awareness of the Party's existence; the opportunism of the Communist Party and the vacillation of its intellectuals after their arrests; setting the wrong goals for the creation of a mass legal toilers’ party; lack of cells and a party newspaper; and inadequate leadership of the peasant movement through an intellectuals’ study society.Footnote 64 The Japanese Communist Party directive to fix these problems, which was written by Chen Laiwang based on his conversation with the Japanese Communist Party, was rejected by Xie Xuehong as being inadequate for Taiwanese conditions.Footnote 65

Thus the Party's émigrés began their criticisms of the organization of the Taiwan-based Party for its deviation from what Weng Zesheng and Lin Mushun perceived as ‘the correct policy’ for the Taiwanese communist movement. This policy fitted into and originated in the current discourse of the Comintern and the Chinese Communist Party. This time, the émigrés did not manage to establish control over the Taiwan-based Party. In November 1928, an independent Party centre was established in Taiwan under Xie, who became a Central Committee member. Two of her supporters joined the Party. At the founding conference they expelled those who had fled to China and whom she had accused of anarchism.Footnote 66 From this point on, the confrontation between the Taiwanese and émigré leaders started to escalate. The émigré leaders accused the Taiwan Party of passivity. In response, Xie accused them of ignorance regarding the Taiwanese situation and the Party's potential, and for sending inadequate directives. Both sides criticized each other for having non-proletarian backgrounds and sought the ideological and financial support of the Comintern. To borrow from Boltanski and Thévenot, they were subjected to the ‘imperative of justification’ and based their arguments and views regarding the Party upon the ‘rules of acceptability’ provided by the Comintern's rhetoric.Footnote 67 After the arrests of spring 1929, Lin Mushun was scared to go back to Taiwan and returned to Shanghai instead, having, according to Weng, disclosed Party secrets and misused funds allocated by the Japanese Communist Party.Footnote 68 The émigré Party centre that opposed Xie Xuehong was now located in Shanghai and headed by Weng Zesheng, who directed the activities of the study societies of Taiwanese in Shanghai, Xiamen, and Zhangzhou.Footnote 69

Weng Zesheng: ‘the hand of the Comintern’

Around the same time, in November 1929, Pavel Mif, the rector of the Sun Yat-sen Communist University of the Toilers of China (Kommunisticheskyi Universitet Trudyaschihsya Kitaya imeni Sun Yatsena) in Moscow and the cadre of the Executive Committee of the Comintern recommended that the Far Eastern Bureau in Shanghai should expand its activity beyond China and connect, in particular, with the Taiwanese Party. He further suggested that they should establish connections and dispatch emissaries to Taiwan where, he said, ‘our party’ had been successful ‘both in peasant and professional movements’ but had lost the connection with the Japanese Communist Party. In January 1930, Mif, now the head of the Far Eastern Bureau, complained to Moscow about the lack of finances and of ‘European comrades’ who knew languages and were trying a ‘new approach’ to Formosa.Footnote 70 Although the Comintern took an interest in the Party, the voice of the Comintern was really that of a local cadre, Weng Zesheng.

In May 1930, Weng Zesheng became the liaison between the Party and the Comintern. He was the only Taiwanese through whom the Comintern had contact with the Party. All emissaries who were sent from the Party to Shanghai to get in touch with the Comintern had to go through Weng.Footnote 71 Furthermore, those sent to the Party from Shanghai were both chosen and instructed by Weng. The reports by two Party members, Lin Rigao and Chen Dexing, who were in Shanghai during the spring and autumn of 1930, were written with Weng's help at the request of the Comintern. Weng infused these reports, prepared on the basis of the information given to him by the Taiwan-based Party members, with his own criticisms, using the language of Comintern discourse, thus presenting the Taiwan-based leadership's policy as erroneous. This clearly shows that Weng Zesheng was at definite odds with the Taiwan-based Party leaders. In both Lin's and Chen's reports, the criticisms of the Party were the same as they had been in the directives that Party members had sent to Taiwan when they were in Tokyo, and which were allegedly Japanese Communist Party directives.

According to Lin's report, the ‘White Terror’ of the Japanese authorities, the Party's weakness and lack of experience, and the lack of guidance from the Comintern after the Party lost contact with the Japanese Communist Party all constrained the revolutionary movement. Most of the Party's 25 members were Chinese Communist Party intellectuals with no practical work experience, weak Party identities, and little understanding of how to do independent Party work. The first resolutions at the conference—to establish a mass party and a united front with the national bourgeoisie and right trade unions—were flawed. Party work and organization were weak; the Party worked through study societies.Footnote 72 Furthermore, the Party committed errors of pacifism, opportunism in cooperation with the bourgeoisie, and had admitted too few new members.Footnote 73 In his commentary on Lin's report, Weng suggested that the Party should be reorganized under the guidance of the Comintern on the basis of mass struggle in factories and villages. Weng accused Lin and Xie of having petty bourgeois essences and ‘rightist conservative’ and ‘pacifist deviations’, and presented his own adherents as having proletarian backgrounds.Footnote 74 These criticisms of the Party were infused with Weng's ideas, which were based on his own experience in the Chinese Communist Party as well as on the Comintern's criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party. At the time, the ‘Comintern line’ directed communist parties to uphold an independent communist line; to provide leadership in strikes and a united front from below, and impose strict discipline; to undertake the Bolshevization of the party; and to struggle against social-democrats, ‘right danger’, and factionalism.Footnote 75 From 1928–1930 the Far Eastern Bureau criticized the Chinese Communist Party for its inability to organize mass protests in the cities, to head even spontaneous protests, its weak influence on the labour movement, a low worker ratio among its members, and weakness and passivity within the lower levels of its organization. In some cases, Chinese Communist Party members refused to lead workers to the streets. They also berated the Chinese Communist Party for its disconnection from the working masses, and the failure of the provincial and central committees to build cells and train cadres in factories. In October 1930, workers comprised only 2 per cent of Chinese Communist Party members.Footnote 76 As these criticisms are identical to those in Weng's later letters to the Far Eastern Bureau and in Chen's report, it is plausible to suggest that Chen's report, like Lin Rigao's report, was also prepared with Weng's help. In this report, the Party was referred to as the ‘Vanguard Party’ and was called ‘weak’, and Taiwan's labour and peasant movements, ‘young’. Like Lin, Chen Dexing made a disclaimer that he was not very knowledgeable about the Party.Footnote 77

Weng got the chance to stir up intra-party struggle when he drew Chen Dexing to his side and turned him against Xie Xuehong. Two events that took place between October and November 1930 helped Weng to justify his ideas regarding the reorganization and radicalization of the Party to the Party itself, the Chinese Communist Party, and the Comintern: the October 1930 uprising in Taiwan and a meeting with Qu Qiubai (瞿 秋 白). Qu was Weng's former professor at Shanghai UniversityFootnote 78 and was by now a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Qu's criticisms of and suggestions to the Party were the same as Weng's, and were again based on the Comintern's discourse and the Chinese Communist Party's experiences. Qu said that the Chinese Communist Party did not consider the Party to be a ‘real’ communist party due to its lack of cells and strong leadership. Qu suggested building the Party's proletarian base, establishing Party cells in factories and red labour unions, explaining Party principles to the masses, promoting a united front from below, fighting against right opportunism, leading strikes, supporting the revolutionary aborigine movement, and demanding ‘absolute independence without compromise’. However, Qu, as a Chinese Communist Party representative, did not take on the responsibility for deciding Party policy on behalf of the Comintern and stressed that the Chinese Communist Party ‘only give[s] oral (not written) advice (not instruction)’ to convene an emergency meeting to revise the Party's programme along Bolshevik lines and to elect a new Central Committee. Qu was not, and did not consider himself to be, a Comintern representative.Footnote 79

However, Weng and both Chen Dexing and Pan Qinxin, who went back to Taiwan, as Weng suggested to the Comintern (see below), interpreted Qu Qiubai's suggestion as a directive that had originated in the Comintern. Such an interpretation allowed them to justify their initiating a change of leadership and reform within the Party, as well as Party radicalization, as Weng had suggested. At the initiative of Chen Dexing, the Reform Alliance was organized and another Central Committee was established.Footnote 80 Moreover, when in February Xie sought to convene a Party conference to resolve the conflict, Weng sent the transcript of Qu Qiubai's suggestions to the Far Eastern Bureau to secure a Comintern ban from convening such a conferenceFootnote 81 and to demonstrate that he acted not on his own initiative, but in accordance with Qu's suggestion that Weng was considered to represent the Comintern's line.Footnote 82 Mif's report to Moscow about the Party developments once again mirrored Weng's opinions, and used language such as ‘passive, opportunist leadership’. His reaction also reflected the ‘anti-rightist’ struggle with the Luo Zhanglong clique and with the ‘leftist’ Strakhov (i.e. Qu Qiubai)-Li Lisan group in Shanghai. By then, Qu was not trusted by the Comintern and he was not elected to the Politburo at the IV Plenum of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (7 January 1931).Footnote 83

In the meantime, Weng received the credentials and the authority to directly influence the organization of the Party in Taiwan when he became a Far Eastern Bureau cadre after meeting with Pan and a female Comintern cadre named ‘Lili’ on 26 November 1930.Footnote 84 The transcript of the meeting contains criticisms of the Party and of Xie that are identical to those in Weng's correspondence with the Comintern and in Lin's and Chen's reports. These were again based on the Comintern's criticism of the Chinese Communist Party for its lack of leadership and initiative in organizing mass protests. The Party's passivity was blamed on the lack of Comintern and Japanese Communist Party leadership, as well as on the intellectuals.Footnote 85 According to the sources, there was no evidence of the Comintern giving any directives during the meeting. Instead, Weng suggested that they dispatch Pan and Chen to Taiwan in order to direct the Taiwanese communists to radicalize their operations. After the meeting, the Far Eastern Bureau decided to take over the leadership of the Party until the connection with the Japanese Communist Party was restored.Footnote 86 Weng started a regular correspondence with the Far Eastern Bureau. As a result, he became the only source of information and the only liaison between the Party and the Comintern.Footnote 87 He promoted his colleagues from the past and from the Shanghai Anti-imperialist League to the Comintern, and discredited his rivals. This allowed him to successfully promote the radicalization and reform of the Party.

A comparison of the Comintern's ‘Letter to the Formosa Communists’ and Weng's letters to the Far Eastern Bureau reveals that the latter's information, approach, and directives to the Taiwan communist movement were based entirely on material, evaluations, and suggestions provided by Weng. It was replete with criticisms of the Party's passivity and refusal to lead spontaneous mass struggles,Footnote 88 and stressed the need to establish a strong proletarian base and Party cells in the factories and to change procedures for joining the Party,Footnote 89 as well as making suggestions regarding the youth movementFootnote 90 and the Cultural Association.Footnote 91 This was the letter that became the Party's ideological platform after the change of leadership and which provided ‘evidence’ of the Comintern's interference with the Party, not only for the Japanese police but also for later scholars. In this letter, the Comintern referred to an ‘Open Letter prepared to the Day of Struggle against Unemployment’Footnote 92 that had been prepared by Weng as a directive.Footnote 93 The part regarding the Comintern's ‘Letter’ on the labour movement had been corrected according to Weng's suggestions.Footnote 94 The Far Eastern Bureau had neither informants nor plans regarding Taiwan that were independent from those of Weng. It must therefore be concluded that the Comintern's policy on Formosa was initiated by Weng, not the Far Eastern Bureau. Weng invoked the Comintern's rhetoric of the radicalization of the revolutionary movement in the ‘Third Period’ to stir up the upcoming revolutionary roundFootnote 95 in order to justify and promote his vision of Party operations, his personal agenda, and his associates.

By late 1930, the confrontation between the two Party centres in Shanghai and Taiwan had escalated into a struggle over Comintern support for legitimacy and authority within the Party. Five emissaries—Chen Dexing (November 1930),Footnote 96 Wang Xisen (王 溪 森) (January 1931), Li Qingqi (李 清 奇) (March 1931),Footnote 97 Liu Zuanzhou (劉 纘 周) (March 1931), and Pan Qinxin (April 1931)Footnote 98—were dispatched to Taiwan on Weng's recommendation. However, by the time Chen arrived in Taiwan, the Party had already decided to intensify its work and activities.Footnote 99 Some Party members perceived these operations to be insufficiently active in light of what they regarded as the revolutionary potential at hand. Some also disliked Xie's ‘patriarchal’ style of leadership and her unwillingness to compromise.Footnote 100 Others resented having a female leader because it contradicted the conventional gender hierarchy.Footnote 101 They were thus ready to embrace the idea of Party reorganization and radicalization proposed by Chen, who was also taken by some as the anticipated Comintern emissary.Footnote 102

In January 1931, six Party members organized the Reform Alliance, on the basis of ‘a Comintern suggestion’ conveyed through Chen Dexing.Footnote 103 They gained the upper hand, and toppled ‘the opportunist woman comrade’ from her position.Footnote 104 The Party split, as Xie refused to accept the suggestions of ‘the Formosan comrades in China who do not understand the conditions in Formosa’.Footnote 105 The resolutions adopted by the Reform AllianceFootnote 106 were in line with Weng's opinions, which had been reflected in the Comintern letter, as well as in the record of Weng's meeting with Qu Qiubai. The Party shifted its work from study societies to organizing strikes across Taiwan, and distributing Party materials in public places.Footnote 107 As a result, it perished within few months.

The Party did not send reports about recent developments to Shanghai until mid-June.Footnote 108 While it was preparing for its second conference in Taiwan, on 30 May 1930 in Shanghai, Weng met with the Far Eastern Bureau representative Austin (I. A. Rylskyi) on his own initiative.Footnote 109 After the meeting, a Far Eastern Bureau cadre reported the Bureau's opinion to the ‘Far Eastern Branch of the Comintern’: ‘There can be no question about any Party Congress at the present time.’ The letter contained sarcastic remarks about the Party, which consisted of just 35 members with two central committees, and the negative opinions conveyed earlier in Weng's letter on Pan Qingxin's activity, apparently in an attempt to compromise Pan in the eyes of the Comintern.Footnote 110 The letter denounced the Reform Alliance and the factional struggle at large, rather than supporting any particular individual, except Weng. Weng was to go to Taibei for three months to lead the Party in accordance with the Comintern's letter. All Party members not yet arrested, and those who accepted the Comintern's line, were to be admitted to work under the leadership of a provisional Central Committee headed by Weng. Even if the Far Eastern Bureau had started to question the information it received about the Party, it still relied solely on Weng to attain the ‘truth about our Formosan comrades’.Footnote 111 On 6 June, Weng received 200 Mexican dollars and 40 yen for his trip from the Far Eastern Bureau.Footnote 112

The letter never reached the addressee. On 15 June 1931, five days after the letter was written, the Shanghai Municipal Police confiscated it, along with other documents, during the arrest of a leading Far Eastern Bureau cadre, Yakov Rudnik. The Far Eastern Bureau had to leave Shanghai. Weng did not go to Taiwan, and returned to work in the Chinese Communist Party.Footnote 113 Between 1931 and 1934, virtually all Taiwanese leftists in Taiwan, Shanghai and Southern Fujian were arrested.Footnote 114 Lin Mushun perished in 1934 in Ruijin.Footnote 115 Weng was arrested on 4 March 1933 and died in 1939 of illness.Footnote 116 Xie Xuehong was active in the 28 February 1947 uprising in Taiwan, and died in China in 1970, during the Cultural Revolution.Footnote 117 The Comintern was not aware of the demise of the Party until 1934, and continued to draft letters to the already non-existent organization.Footnote 118

The Party and intra-East Asian communist experience

Both Party émigrés and the Taiwan-based leaders employed Comintern discourse as an exogenous tool in order to solve conflicting opinions, to discredit their opponents’ views, and to establish their ideological legitimacy and authority over the Party. In her testimony after her arrest on 26 June 1931,Footnote 119 Xie blamed the Party's collapse on repression by the authorities and on the errors of her enemies, in the same way as her opponents had accused her. Again, these accusations included a litany of anarchists’ intrigues, the lack of Japanese Communist Party leadership, a predominantly intellectual membership, policies that had been adopted at the founding conference which were inadequate to the situation in Taiwan, and the Party's feeble political life. She compared the Reform Alliance to Li Lisan's line in terms of not taking the objective situation into account. According to Xie, the Party easily accepted the Reform Alliance's leadership because it used the Comintern's name and because the Party had neither connections to the Japanese Communist Party nor the strength to act independently. The lack of qualified cadres, a Party newspaper, and access to Japanese Communist Party and Chinese Communist Party materials pushed the Party into opportunism.Footnote 120

Disagreements within the Party at the founding conference were exacerbated by increasing levels of persecution of communists within the Japanese empire in 1928, which led to arrests within the newborn Party and to discord between émigrés and Taiwan-based Party leaders. To put it in the terms of Boltanski and Thévenot's analysis of justification, the Comintern's line became ‘the common definition of the form of generality’, which established a connection between the situation at hand (conflicting opinions within the Party) and others identified as analogous (anti-rightist and anti-leftist campaigns in the Chinese Communist Party), and allowed the parties involved in the dispute ‘to set up a claim, unveil an injustice, ask for an atonement’ within the framework of legitimate rules, and without resorting to violence.Footnote 121

The differences between Weng's and Xie's views were based on their different experiences within the communist movement. Xie, as a Comintern cadre, matured between 1925 and 1927 when the Comintern promoted legal organizations and methods. The origins of Xie's views on Party recruitment and publication can be found in the Executive Committee of the Comintern's ‘Guiding lines for the formation of a communist party in the Philippines’, compiled around the time of the establishment of the Party. Footnote 122 These guidelines suggested that communists were first to discuss the communist programme informally with sympathisers in the Labour Party in order to identify ‘the real comrades’ and then, within this group, discuss practical ways in which to undertake a socialist revolution. Communist propaganda was to be published under the name of fictitious organizations such as the Workers’ Educational League, in order not to jeopardize the legal existence of the Labour Party.Footnote 123 The Executive Committee of the Comintern ‘Resolution on the Philippines’, adopted on 10 April 1928, directed communists not to hold activities in the name of the communist party, which should instead be established on the basis of the revolutionized Labour Party.Footnote 124 Xie's refusal to lead more open communist activity in Taiwan can also be traced to debates held within the Japanese Communist Party about public activity at the time when she studied in Moscow in 1926–27.Footnote 125 The Party's policy of working through study societies within the Peasant Union was apparently modelled on the Japanese Communist Party's analogous policy which was supported by the Comintern.Footnote 126 On the other hand, Weng had been immersed in the Chinese Communist Party experience and the Comintern discourse of 1929–1930, when the Comintern criticized the Chinese Communist Party for its passivity, weak influence over the masses, and non-proletarian membership. Weng and Xie competed for the legitimacy of representing the Comintern orthodoxy, and even retained each other's letters which they were supposed to pass on to the Comintern and the Party.Footnote 127

Based on Pan's assertion that the Comintern was prepared to recall Xie from Taiwan if she ‘become[s] harmful’, it is plausible to suggest that the Comintern continued to regard Xie as its cadre.Footnote 128 Like Chinese Communist Party members after 1927, Party members employed Marxism-Leninism as a set of ‘symbols and values’ to argue ‘their ideas and causes’. Therefore, the Party, like the Chinese Communist Party, had the characteristics of a mass political party with a common culture based on Marxist-Leninism as a form of communication and an instrument to centralize the Party.Footnote 129

If, as has been established, the guidelines supposedly issued by the Comintern actually originated with the Party, then the Taiwan communist movement was shaped to a greater degree by local communists’ agendas, not by missives from Moscow, the Japanese Communist Party or the Chinese Communist Party. The disastrous radicalization policy was initiated by Weng and, though expressed in the Comintern–Chinese Communist Party discourse, it cannot be attributed solely to Moscow. The combination of several factors created the illusion that it was the Comintern's missive that had caused the radicalization, split the Party, and resulted in its collapse: Party leaders employed Comintern rhetoric to accuse each other; Party members in Taiwan resented Xie's leadership style and gender, and anticipated that a Comintern representative would come to Taiwan to guide the Party. Most importantly, the Comintern's radicalization policy conflated with the Taiwan-based Party's impulse to work more actively, so that Xie's estimation of Weng's orders as inadequate to Taiwan's conditions were projected onto the Comintern missives that prescribed the same policy that Weng had suggested. The illusion that it was the Comintern's missive that had caused the radicalization matched the Cold War historiography of the victimization of the communist movement in East Asia by the Comintern.Footnote 130 As a result, the role of intra-party conflict and the employment of the Comintern's rhetoric by local cadres in the Party's history have been obscured, as has the role of other factors that played as much a part in the early Chinese Communist Party.Footnote 131 These included communication delays, lack of faith and funds, territorial disunity, and political suppression and fear of arrest. It is only now that the fateful agency of Taiwan's local actors can be seen.

This paper's analysis of the Taiwanese Communist Party's relations with the Comintern reveals broader themes in the communist movements in East Asia, especially the Japanese Communist Party and the Korean Communist Party, and their relations with the Comintern. Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Taiwanese communists were closely related through immigrant networks and through the world of Comintern policy-making. Koreans acted as Soviet envoys in the initial stages of the Comintern's contact with both the Taiwanese and Japanese. In the 1920s, Korean communists were closely involved in the Chinese revolutionary movement.Footnote 132 Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, and Japanese parties started simultaneously inside their countries and in overseas centres, which often resulted in factional strife because of policy disagreements and competition for political legitimacy and Comintern resources.Footnote 133 Similarly, there was discontent within leftist organizations in Korea towards overseas leaders taking part in the decision-making process. As in case of the Party, in 1926 the overseas bureau of the Korean Communist Party in Shanghai functioned as a communication point between the Executive Committee of the Comintern and Korean Communist Party. Likewise, the Korean bureau sent Comintern envoys to Korea to urge their compatriots to work more actively.Footnote 134 However, whereas in Korea and Taiwan factions attempted to gain recognition from the Comintern, in Japan they operated entirely outside of the party recognized by the Comintern.Footnote 135 Finally, Japanese and Korean overseas bases and Comintern-raised cadres ensured both parties could restock membership after arrests, which was successful only until the early 1930s.Footnote 136

Taiwanese, Japanese, and Korean communists were deeply embedded in their local situation. All three were subject to severe state repression. The Japanese state's tactic of coordinated mass arrests neutralized thousands of suspected communists. By 1932, the Japanese Communist Party's underground organization was destroyed—and so too was the Party in Taiwan.Footnote 137 Although equally devastating arrests in Korea did not put an end to the activity of the Korean communists,Footnote 138 by the late 1930s the Korean Communist Party too was in ruins as a result of repression by the Japanese state and Stalin. The interests and push for control by the Comintern in local parties reached a peak at different times and was shaped by local conditions and regional interests. In East Asia, the Comintern had financially supported and exerted influence on the parties since the early 1920s. After 1934, as espionage became their priority, the Comintern took little interest and made no effort to foment the unlikely revolution in Japan.Footnote 139 The Comintern invariably promoted its ‘one-party, one-country’ principle and anti-factionalism in all East Asian parties.Footnote 140 When the Comintern was about to take action over the Party's factionalism—albeit through Weng Zesheng's ‘faction’ —the police acted faster. Yet, the Taiwanese communists operated in a uniquely double context. They were culturally Chinese and shared their language and way of life with their colleagues in Shanghai. They were also the agents of what Thornber refers to as the ‘intra-East Asian transculturation’.Footnote 141 Taiwanese communists’ denunciation of communism during their trial in Taihoku in 1934Footnote 142 should also be considered in light of the recantations made one year earlier by the high-ranking Japanese Communist Party leaders, such as Sano Gaku and Nabeama Sadachika, which led to mass recantations within the Japanese Communist Party.Footnote 143

Conclusion

The case of the Party is a frozen moment in the relations between the Comintern and East Asian communists. It shows that the Comintern did not possess sufficient control to manipulate local parties as its docile tools. All East Asian parties had their cadres working in the Comintern and neither Japanese, Korean, nor Taiwanese communists’ relations with Moscow were limited to one-way ‘impact–response’ relations. If indeed the imperative for justification was the driving force in relations between the Party and the Comintern, and the Party leaders used the ‘Comintern line’ as a frame of reference to accuse each other, then the rhetoric of the ‘Comintern line’ was the justificatory tool in a local factional struggle. Therefore, the ‘Comintern line’ did not have to be entirely relevant to the ‘objective situation’ in the given socio-political setting, but only had to provide a mutually accepted external reference point and help to solve intra-party conflict. In this light, Scalapino and Lee's point that it is doubtful that there could have been a ‘correct policy’ for communism in Northeast Asia and that the Korean communists could not possibly have risen to power whatever policy they had chosenFootnote 144 also gains a new meaning. In addition, there was no correct policy for the Comintern to offer because its directives could not have had a tangible impact due to the local context in which the communists had to operate: the fierce oppression by the Japanese security forces, distance, the technical difficulties of communication, and the local party members’ sheer lack of will to subject themselves to the Comintern's missives if they ran against their own interests or survival.

According to Boltanski and Thévenot's modes of justification, the relationship between the Party and the Comintern—and perhaps, for the Japanese Communist Party and Korean Communist Party as well—fits into the ‘Civic World’ mode where the Comintern represented the authority of a disembodied sovereign that secured the common good, provided a basis for peace, and the solution to interpersonal conflict. In this context, an individual's worth was measured proportionally to their connection with this disembodied sovereign.Footnote 145 The formulaic Comintern rhetoric secured the manoeuvring and a performative space for local initiatives to engage with this language, and created a form of public sphere on an international scale where local communists, just like the Soviet people,Footnote 146 articulated and negotiated their personal and nationalist agendas. These could either be supported or rejected by Comintern cadres. The Taiwanese communists, to borrow from Kotkin, knew how to ‘speak Bolshevik’Footnote 147 and successfully used this language to further their causes or to careen into their own self-destruction.

Boltanski and Thévenot's justification theory opens up a functional definition of the public sphere and allows for the existence of public spheres other than Habermasian. The Comintern line functioned as Gramscian hegemony that reinforced the authority of the elite in civil society, which can be, according to Cheek, an ‘unusual or unexpected coalition of social actors or forces’ and, in our case, the Comintern. Moreover, according to Cheek, if one uses the Gramscian definition of civil society as a functional category or arena in the polity, an analogous ‘directed public sphere’ can be found in the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda system (xuanjiao xitong 宣 交 系 統), in the civil society, and within the Party itself.Footnote 148 It is remarkable that in this Gramscian-directed public sphere, where the Comintern line worked as hegemony, the local communists’ agency was not erased. On the periphery of the Comintern, members of the Party were able to subvert the hegemony of the centre for their own causes and to make their own mistakes.

Footnotes

*

This paper is based on the findings of collaborative research undertaken with Professor Konstantin Tertitskiy, Moscow State University, and published in Tertitskiy, K. and Belogurova, A. (2005). Tayvan'skoye kommunisticheskoye dvizheniye i Komintern. Issledovaniye. Dokumenty (1924–1932) (Taiwanese Communist Movement and the Comintern. A Study. Documents. 1924–1932), Vostok-Zapad, Moscow (hereafter TK). I would like to thank my adviser, Professor Timothy Cheek; Professors Tertitskiy and Timothy Brook for their generous comments; the anonymous reviewer for the suggestion to add a comparative perspective; Professors Hyung Gu Lynn, Steven H. Lee, and Jessica Main for help in navigating in the Korean and Japanese contexts; Jamie Sedgwick and Tom Woodsworth for editorial comments; and Helen Kim for help with translation.

References

1 Hereafter, ‘the Party’ is used exclusively to refer to the Taiwanese Communist Party.

2 Shiqiao, Huang (1999). Taiwan gongchandang mishi (Secret History of the Taiwanese Communist Party), Haixia xueshu chubanshe, Taibei, p. 59Google Scholar. For a discussion of the Party's ambiguous criteria for membership and the problems with the membership data, see TK, p. 220, n. 88.

3 Boltanski, L. and Thévenot, L. (1999). ‘The Sociology of Critical Capacity’, European Journal of Social Theory, 2 (3), pp. 359–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pp. 371–72. Boltanski and Thévenot analyse different modes of justification that individuals employ in their search for a legitimate agreement in conflict situations. In order to handle criticism and avoid violence, individuals base their justification on mutually accepted rules and frames of reference external to the parties of conflict, and ground their arguments in ‘legitimate worth’. Six different justification modes are derived from both empirical research and political philosophy's ‘grammar of political bonds’ which, much like individuals in conflict, claim a common good. These six ‘orders of worth’, or ‘worlds’, operate according to different rules of order and have different inhabitants. They are the ‘World of Justice’ (based on St Augustine's City of God); the ‘Domestic World’ (Politique tirée des propres paroles de l’ Èriture sainte by Jacques Bénigne Bossuet); the ‘World of Renown’ (Hobbes’ Leviathan); the ‘Market World’ (Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations); and the ‘Industrial World’ (Saint Simon's work). In this paper I invoke the sixth justification mode and Boltanski and Thévenot's interpretation of its inhabitants and order—the ‘Civic World’ —based on Rousseau's Contrat Social. I conceptualize the Comintern as the disembodied sovereign of this world, comprising a convergence of human wills (communist parties and their individual members) and providing common good (revolution) to its people who, in turn, give up their personal interests for the common good.

4 See ‘Letter to the Formosa Communists’, Rossiyskiy gosudarstvennyy arkhiv sotsial'no-politicheskoy istorii – the Russian Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI), fond (fond) 495/ opis (inventory) 128/ delo (file) 1/ list (page) 6–13. This copy is dated 7 July 1931, but the letter was compiled in the winter of 1930–1931. Reprinted in TK, pp. 514–23. For the Chinese translation, see Naixin, Wanget al. (eds) (1989). Taiwan shehui yundong shi, 1913–1936 (History of Taiwan's Social Movement, 1913–1936), five volumes, Chuangzao chubanshe, TaibeiGoogle Scholar; Volume 3: Gongchan yundong (Communist Movement), pp. 140–48. The failure of the Party was also blamed on the fractionalizing influences of the Chinese Communist Party and Japanese Communist Party, which did not allow the Party to adapt to Taiwanese conditions, as well as on political suppression. See also Hsiao, Frank S. T. and Sullivan, Lawrence R. (1983). ‘A Political History of the Taiwanese Communist Party, 1928–1931’, Journal of Asian Studies, 42 (February), pp. 269–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jiongren, Jian (1997). Taiwan gongchanzhuyi yundong (Taiwanese Communist Movement), Qianwei chubanshe, TaibeiGoogle Scholar; Huang Shiqiao Secret History of the Taiwanese Communist Party; Xiuyi, Lu (1992). Riju shidai Taiwan gongchangdangshi (1928–1932) (The History of the Taiwanese Communist Party during the Japanese Colonial Period (1928–1932)), Qianwei chubanshe, TaibeiGoogle Scholar; Bichuan, Yang (1996). Riju shidai Taiwanren fankangshi (The History of Resistance of Taiwan's People during the Japanese Colonial Period), Dao xiang chu ban she, TaibeiGoogle Scholar; Shi, Xian Banqiao and Qiquan, Lin (1992). ‘Guanyu Taiwan gongchandang baiwang de yuanying’ (‘To the Reasons of the Collapse of the TCP’), Zhongguo luntan, 18 (32–6) (1 April), pp. 112–20Google Scholar. Only Chen Fangming has questioned whether the source of the Party's radicalization directive was the Comintern or the Chinese Communist Party, and suggested that Party infighting had internal underpinnings. See Fangming, Chen (1991). ‘Taiwan Kangri yungong de zuoyi luxian. Yi taigong “shangdapai” zhunao Weng Zesheng wei zhongxin’ (‘The Left Wing of the Taiwanese Anti-Japanese Movement. The Central Figure of the “Shanghai University Faction” ’), Zhongguo luntan, 3 (31–4) (1 January), pp. 29–38Google Scholar, and Fangming, Chen (2000). Xie Xuehong pingzhuan (Biography of Xie Xuehong), Qianwei chubanshe, TaibeiGoogle Scholar. People's Republic of China publications do not discuss reasons other than the ‘White Terror’ for the debacle, nor do they discuss the Party's relationship with the Comintern. Rather, they highlight the Party's relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, and even attribute authorship of the Comintern's letter to Weng Zesheng and Qu Qiubai. Biao, Xiao, Jinhe, Yang, Bingnan, Wang and Weiping, Xu (eds) (1986). ‘Weng Zesheng’, in Zhonggongdang shi renwu yanjiuhui, Zhonggongdang shi renwu zhuan (Biographies of the Chinese Communist Party Historical Figures); Shanxi renmin chubanshe, Xian, Vol. 27, pp. 141–60Google Scholar; Chi, He (2005). Weng Zesheng zhuan (Biography of Weng Zesheng), Haixia xueshu, TaibeiGoogle Scholar.

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10 The correspondence is deposited in RGASPI and is published in TK. Michael Share used these materials in Share, Michael (2007). Where Empires Collided: Russian and Soviet Relations with Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, The Chinese University Press, Hong KongGoogle Scholar. According to Share, ‘Comintern agent’ Ong criticized the Party in order to impose the Soviet model onto it; see pp. 174–75.

11 Xuehong, Xie (1997). Wo de banshengji (Half of My Life), Yang Cuihua, TaibeiGoogle Scholar; Yanxian, Zhang and Shuyuan, Gao (1993). ‘Yiwei Taigong de xin lucheng. Zhuang Chunhuo fangwen jilu’ (‘A Story of a Taiwanese Communist Party Member. Interview with Zhuang Chunhuo’), Taiwan shiliao yanjiu, 2 (August), pp. 81–92Google Scholar. Naixin, Wanget al. (eds), History of Taiwan's Social Movement, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter NA) RG263: D 2510, 2527Google Scholar. My thanks to the late John E. Taylor of the National Archives, Washington D.C., and Susan Strange for their help in locating and obtaining these documents.

12 Boltanski and Thévenot, ‘The Sociology of Critical Capacity’, pp. 360, 364; see also note 3.

13 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 104–05, 215–16; Lin Rigao's report to the Comintern: ‘The Recent Political and Economic Situation in Formosa’, May 1930, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.6/68–84ob., especially 82, 78 ob.; TK, pp. 276–300, especially pp. 290 and 296.

14 Wang Naixin et al. (eds), History of Taiwan's Social Movement, Volume 5: Laodong, Zuoyi yundong (Labour and Leftist Movement), pp. 108–10.

15 He Chi, Weng Zesheng zhuan, pp. 204–05, 239; Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 108.

16 Wang Naixin et al. (eds), History of Taiwan's Social Movement, Volume 4: Nongmin yundong (Peasant Movement), p. 153.

17 Wang Naixan et al., Peasant Movement, p. 12; Communist Movement, pp. 117–18.

18 Zhang Yanxian and Gao Shuyuan, ‘A Story’, p. 88.

19 Wang Naixin et al., Peasant Movement, p. 175.

20 Zarrow, Peter (1990). Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, Columbia University Press, New York, p. 210Google Scholar; Van de Ven, From Friend to Comrade, pp. 63, 99; Xu Naichang's report to the Comintern: ‘Taiwan Jyōkyō Hōkoku’ (‘The Situation in Taiwan’), 27 October 1924, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.9/ l.1–45, especially 31–40.

21 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 2.

22 ‘Formosa, ili Tayvan. Obshchiye svedeniya’ (Formosa, or Taiwan. General information), 1 August 1923, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.14/ l.1–8; TK, pp. 258–65.

23 Xu Naichang's personal file, RGASPI, f.495/ op.225/ d.639; Shilang, Wang (1988). Taiwan shehui yundongshi. Wenhua yundong (The History of Taiwan's Social Movement. Cultural Movement), Daoxiang Chubanshe, Taibei Xian, p. 324Google Scholar.

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25 Yŏ Un-hyŏng was also a member of the Chinese Guomindang and the founder of the Korean-Chinese Mutual Aid Society (韩 中 互 助 社). Un-hyŏng, Yŏ (1967). Mongyang Yŏ Un-hyŏng, Chònghagak, Seoul, pp. 376–77Google Scholar.

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27 ‘The Situation in Taiwan’, RGASPI f.495/ op.128/ d.9/ l.31–40.

28 Wang Shilang, The History of Taiwan's Social Movement, p. 148.

29 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 3.

30 Wu Junru (1982). ‘Di yi ci guo gong hezuo qijian gongchandang chuangli de geming xuexiao’ (‘Shanghai University, the Revolutionary University established by the Chinese Communist Party during the Guomindang-Chinese Communist Party First United Front’), in Guangzhou wenshi ziliao xuanji (Guangzhou City Literary and Historical Materials), Vol. 27, Guangdong renmin chubanshe, Guangdong shi, pp. 60–66.

31 Zhao Qingyun's autobiography, RGASPI, f.495/ op.280/ d.231/ l.17; TK, p. 582.

32 He Chi, Weng Zesheng zhuan, pp. 32; Shenqie, Zhang (1998). Lichengbei: Heise de taiyang (shang) (Milestone: Black Sun) in Zhang Shenqie quanji. Juan 1 (Complete Collection of the Works of Zhang Shenqie. Part One), Wenjingshe, Taibei, p. 248Google Scholar.

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34 ‘Spisok studentov inogruppy’ (‘The list of the students of the foreign students’ group’) of the Moscow Communist University of the Toilers of the East, 1927, RGASPI, f.532/ op.1/ d.462/ l.20. According to Xie, she joined the Chinese Communist Party in August 1925. Xie, Wode banshengji, pp. 174, 183.

35 ‘Delovyye otzyvy o studentakh spetsgruppy’ (‘Work references for the students of the special group’), 1927, RGASPI, f.532/ op. 1/ d.46/ l.11.

36 Sen Katayama's letter to B. Z. Shumyatskiy, 20 September 1927, RGASPI, f.532/ op.1/ d.36/ l.105. No evidence of the Comintern decision to establish the Party has been found in the Comintern materials. According to Lin, while in Moscow he and Xie asked the Comintern to establish the Party. Lin Mushun's report to the Comintern: ‘Taiwan gongchandang zuzhi de jingguo he xianzhuang’ (‘The Establishment of the Organisation and the Present Condition of the Taiwanese Communist Party’), RGASPI, f.514/ op.1/ d.461/ l.l–14, especially 2. This report is erroneously dated 26 February 1928, but it was actually compiled after the establishment of the Party. According to Xie, they followed a Comintern directive. See Xie, Wode banshengji, pp. 183, 223. ‘The Theses on Japan of the ECCI’, which were drafted during the Japanese Communist Party delegation's visit to Moscow in 1927, only recommended that the Japanese Communist Party should establish contact with and support liberation movements in the Japanese colonies. Adibekov and Vada, The Comintern and Japan, p. 460.

37 Van de Ven, From Friend to Comrade, p. 81.

38 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 9.

39 ‘Beseda Lili s formozskimi tovarishchami 26 noyabrya 1930g’ (‘Lili's conversation with the Formosan comrades on 26 November 1930’), RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.1–1ob.; TK, pp. 379–83.

40 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 8.

41 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 9; ‘The Establishment of the Organisation’, RGASPI, f.514/ op.1/ d.461/ l.3.

42 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 9–10.

43 VI congress Kominterna. Stenograficheskiy otchet. No. 4. Revolutsionnoye dvizheniye v kolonial'nyh i polukolonial'nyh stranah. (VI Congress of the Comintern. Verbatim Transcript. Revolutionary Movement in Colonial and Semicolonial Countries), Moscow-Leningrad, 1929, p. 30.

44 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 10. Xie, Wode banshengji, p. 250. Xie received money to establish the Party from the International Red Aid organization (Russian acronym: MOPR) and the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. He Chi, Weng Zesheng zhuan, p. 158. The Comintern itself never provided funds to the Party, except for those allocated through the Japanese Communist Party. Weng Zesheng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 15 April 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.1/ l. 214–24, especially 220–21; TK, pp. 545–51, especially p. 549. NA, RG263: D2527/45.

45 Between 1928 and 1931, he was the International Red Aid's representative in China. Titarenko, M. L. and Leutner, M. (eds) (1999). VKP(b), Komintern i Kitai. Dokumenty. VKP(b), Komintern i Sovetskoye dvizheniye v Kitaye. 1927–1931 (All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Comintern, and China. Documents. The Comintern and Soviet Movement in China), AO ‘Buklet’, Moscow, p. 1530Google Scholar.

46 Xie, Wode banshengji, p. 170, 229.

47 ‘The Establishment of the Organisation’, RGASPI, f.514/ op.1/ d.461/ l.3.

48 Xie, Wode banshengji, p. 230.

49 Xie's guess that the Chinese Communist Party representative who went under the pseudonym Peng Rong (彭 榮) was Peng Pai (彭 湃) is wrong: see Xie, Wode banshengji, p. 249. According to Lin Mushun, it was Ren. See ‘The Establishment of the Organisation’, RGASPI, f.514/ op.1/ d.461/ l.3. Ren's involvement in the Party is corroborated in Cai Xiaoqian's reminiscences. See Xiaoqian, Cai (1970). Jiangxi suqu. Hongjunxi huiyi. (My Recollections of the Kiangsi Soviet Area and the Westward Flight of the Chinese Red Army), Zhonggong yanjiu zazhishe, Taibei, p. 22Google Scholar.

50 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 97–98.

51 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 13, 18.

52 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 126–27; He Chi, Weng Zesheng zhuan, p. 173–74. According to Su Xin, Xie erroneously associated Weng with those she accused of being anarchists and who had belonged to the anarchist Taiwan Black Youth Union (Taiwan heise qingnian lianmeng). It should be noted that the anarchists’ reputation was compromised because of their alliance with the Guomindang in the aftermath of April 1927. See Dirlik, A. (1991). Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, University of California Press, Berkeley, p. 248Google Scholar. This made ‘anarchists’ a convenient label for a political opponent.

53 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 99, 106; He Chi, Weng Zesheng zhuan, p. 203–04.

54 Jian Jiongren, Taiwan Communist Movement, p. 95.

55 Xie, Wode banshengji, p. 269.

56 The Party was not mentioned at the Sixth Congress of the Comintern (17 July to 1 September 1928) nor in the Japanese Communist Party Comintern documents until the Executive Committee of the Comintern's ‘Resolution on current tasks of the Japanese Communist Party’ was compiled in October. Adibekov and Vada, The Comintern and Japan, pp. 473, 479. Identified by Katayama as ‘Theses on Formosa’, ‘Formosa under the yoke of Japanese imperialism’, compiled on 31 June 1928, still advocated the establishment of the Party as if it had not yet been established. RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.14/ l.100–101, 103–04; TK, pp. 266–68. Katayama's letter to Martynov, 20 April 1929, RGASPI, f.521/ op.1/ d.65/ l.131; TK, pp. 104–05.

57 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 102.

58 ‘The Establishment of the Organisation’, RGASPI, f.514/ op.1/ d.461/ l.12–13.

59 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 102, 106, 107.

60 Xie, Wode banshengji, p. 293.

61 ‘The Recent Political’, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.6/ l. 80,80ob; TK, p. 293.

62 Wang Naixin et al., Labour and Leftist Movement, pp. 124–33.

63 See a report and Lin Mushun and Chen Laiwang's letter to the Second Congress of the Peasant Union on behalf of the ‘Central Committee Taiwanese Communist Party’, Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 103–05 and Peasant Movement, pp. 130–42.

64 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 103–05 and Peasant Movement, pp. 130–42.

65 Wang Naixin et al., Labour and Leftist Movement, pp. 123–24.

66 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 107–08.

67 Boltanski and Thévenot, ‘The Sociology of Critical Capacity’, p. 360.

68 Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 5 January 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.2–10, especially 5; TK, pp. 392–97, especially p. 394; Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 102, 105–06.

69 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 354–78.

70 Titarenko and Leutner (1999). The Comintern and China, pp. 635, 803.

71 He Chi, Weng Zesheng zhuan, p. 239.

72 Weng labelled the Party ‘opportunist’ for not making public the existence of the ‘Vanguard party’, i.e. the Party. Weng's report, undated, compiled some time in January–February 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op. 128/ d.10/ l.178–86, especially 183; TK, pp. 475–80, especially p. 478. Weng criticized the Party for what Van de Ven terms ‘a traditional instrumentalist view’ in the early Chinese Communist Party (From friend to comrade, p. 110). Weng quoted a letter from a Taiwanese communist that argued: ‘Why should [we] anxiously ask them to enter the Party? Is there any difference for carrying on our work if there are our resolutions? ’ See ‘Supplementary notes by Ong Ding Chuan’, 12 May 1930, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.6/ l.85–88, especially 87–87 ob.; TK, pp. 301–06, especially p. 304.

73 ‘The Recent Political’, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.6/ l.68–84 ob.; TK, pp. 276–300.

74 ‘Supplementary notes’, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.6/ l.88, 85 ob, 86 ob, 87; TK, pp. 301–06.

75 Kuusinen, O. (1930) ‘Novyi period i povorot v politike Kominterna (Pod rukovodstvom tov. Stalina)’ (‘New Period and Turn in the Comintern Policy [Under the Leadership of Comrade Stalin] ’), in Kommunisticheskyi Internatsional (Communist International), No. 2.

76 Titarenko and Leutner (1999). The Comintern and China, pp. 271, 584–88, 820, 937, 1079, 1170–171, 1174, 1465.

77 He Chi, Weng Zesheng zhuan, p. 239; ‘The Present Situation in Formosa (by Ah-Tao)’, undated and likely to have been compiled in the Summer/Autumn of 1930, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.11/ l.1–3; TK, pp. 338–42.

78 Chen Fangming, ‘Taiwan Kangri yungong de zuoyi luxian’, p. 36.

79 Prepared by Weng, record of Qu Qiubai's conversation with Weng, Pan, and Chen, undated, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.57–66; especially 58–59; TK, pp. 431–36, especially p. 431.

80 Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 1 February 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.67–72, especially 69; TK, pp. 426–29, especially p. 427.

81 Conversation with Qu, and Weng's letter, 1 February 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.57; 72; TK, pp. 431, 428.

82 Weng's letter, 1 February 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.71; TK, p. 428.

83 Titarenko and Leutner (1999). The Comintern and China, pp. 1318–319, 1308–309, 1182.

84 Pan's letter to Weng, 28 April 1931, in Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 21 May 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.162–166, especially 164; TK, pp. 574–77, especially p. 575; ‘Lili's conversation’, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.1; TK, p. 379.

85 ‘Lili's conversation’, RGASPI f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.1–1ob.; TK, pp. 379–83.

86 Pavel Mif's letter to the Executive Committee of the Comintern, 2 December 1930, RGASPI, f.514/ op.1/ d.566/ l.181.

87 Titarenko and Leutner (1999) The Comintern and China, p. 1318; Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 15 April 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/d. 10/ l.222–23; TK, p. 550. Weng wrote to the Far Eastern Bureau on average twice a week. He was paid 50 Mexican dollars a month. Titarenko, M. L. and Leutner, M. (eds) (2003). VKP(b), Komintern i Kitai. Dokumenty. VKP(b), Komintern i Sovetskoye dvizheniye v Kitaye. 1931–1937 (All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Comintern and China. Documents. The Comintern and Soviet Movement in China), ‘ROSSPEN’, Moscow, p. 109Google Scholar.

88 ‘Lili's conversation’, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.1, TK, p. 381; Weng's letter, 5 January 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.3; TK, p. 392; ‘Letter to the Formosa Communists’, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.1/ l.6; TK, p. 514.

89 ‘The Recent Political’, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.6/ l.84–84ob.; TK, pp. 299–300; ‘Letter to the Formosa Communists’, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.1/ l.3ob.; TK, p. 520.

90 Prepared by Weng for the Far Eastern Bureau, ‘Material regarding the Youth Movement’, undated, compiled some time in January–February 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/d.10/ l.206–13, especially 209, 210, 212; TK, pp. 485–90, especially pp. 487–88, 490; ‘Letter to the Formosa Communists’, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.1/ l.12–13, TK, pp. 522–23.

91 Weng's report to the Far Eastern Bureau, 20 January 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.25–135, especially 30–31; TK, pp. 410–16, especially p. 414; Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 28 January 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.45–48, especially 47; TK, pp. 417–19, especially p. 418; ‘Letter to the Formosa Communists’, RGASPI, f. 495/ op.128/ d.1/ l.12; TK, p. 522.

92 ‘The Open Letter’, 29 January 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.50–56; TK, pp. 421–25; Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 29 January 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.49; TK, p. 420.

93 ‘Letter to the Formosa Communists’, RGASPI, f. 495/ op.128/ d.1/ l.11; TK, p. 521.

94 Prepared by Weng for the Far Eastern Bureau, ‘Materials and Opinions on Trade Movement in Formosa’, 8 March 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.122–28, especially 128; TK, pp. 527–32, especially pp. 531–32; ‘Letter to the Formosa Communists’, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.1/ l.11; TK, pp. 520–21.

95 XI Plenum ispolnitel'nogo Komiteta Kommunsticheskogo Internatsionala (XI Plenum of the ECCI) (1932), Moscow, pp. 42–43.

96 Weng's letter, 1 February 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.1, 67; TK, p. 426.

97 Li delivered the Comintern letter to Taiwan. Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 306, 139–40.

98 Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 11 February 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.74–77, especially 74; TK, pp. 444–46, especially p. 444; Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 20 February 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op. 128/ d.10/ l.92–96; TK, pp. 456–58. Liu attended the Fifth Profintern Congress (15–30 August 1930) and was dispatched by the Comintern to Taiwan to solve factional conflict. Letter of the Shanghai representative of the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariate to Moscow, 9 June 1931, RGASPI, f.534/ op.4/ d.370/ l.45–53, especially 52. Liu took Xie's side and denounced the Reform Alliance as counter to the Comintern's line, as did both the Japanese Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Party. Pan Qinxin was the ‘Comintern representative’ at the Party's Second Conference. Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 162–67, 132, 198–200.

99 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 111–13.

100 Zhang Yanxian and Gao Shuyuan, ‘A Story,’ pp. 87–88; He Chi, Weng Zesheng zhuan, p. 243

101 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 124; Prepared by Weng, ‘Supplementary material on the Inner-Party Struggle’, undated, compiled some time in February 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.227–28, especially 227; TK, pp. 493–94, especially p. 493.

102 ‘Brief der Parteiorganozation von Formosa an das EKKZ’ (‘The Letter of the Formosan Party Organisation to ECCI’), unsigned, likely prepared by Xie Xuehong, 25 April 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.143–44; TK, pp. 552–53.

103 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 116–18.

104 Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 17 February 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.85–91, especially 87; TK, pp. 452–55, especially p. 453. According to Xie, Weng Zesheng also sent his emissaries to Taiwan earlier: Chen Xintang (陳 新 堂) in October 1928, Wang Wande (王 萬 得) in 1929, and Jiang Chongding or Wei (蔣 重 鼎, 魏) in 1930. Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 127–28; Xie, Wode banshengji, p. 272; He Chi, Weng Zesheng zhuan, p. 215.

105 Chen Dexing's letter to Weng (December 1931) in Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 7 February 1931, RGASPI f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.36–43, especially 38; TK, pp. 438–42, especially p. 439. Another six Party members did not join the Reform Alliance. Pan's letter to Weng, 28 April 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.162; TK, p. 574.

106 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 117–24.

107 Wang Naixin et al., Labour and Leftist Movement, pp. 169–80; Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 7 April 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.138–42; TK, pp. 542–44; Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 192–93.

108 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 167.

109 Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 26 May 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.166; TK, p. 580.

110 Pan's letter to Weng (21 May 1931) in Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 4 June 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.161–61 ob.; TK, pp. 578–79.

111 NA, RG263: D2510/49.

112 A British report ‘Communist Activities in China, Federated Malay States etc. (The „Noulens Case“)’, 7 March 1932, NA, RG263: 2527/45, p. 26.

113 Titarenko and Leutner (2003) The Comintern and China, p. 109.

114 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 350–53; 378. Of the 400 arrested individuals, 94 were sentenced to between two and 13 years in 1934. Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 195–97, 273–76.

115 He Chi, Weng Zesheng zhuan, p. 261.

116 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 197.

117 See Chen Fangming, Xie Xuehong Pingzhuang.

118 In 1934, the Party was still referred to as an ‘expanding party’. The Comintern apparently learned about the Party's collapse, arrests, and the trial from the press. Sklyarov, D. ‘Introduction’, in Yautihara (Yanaibara) Tadao (1934). Formosa pod vlast'yu yaponskogo imperializma (Formosa under the Rule of the Japanese Imperialism), Moscow, p. xixGoogle Scholar; ‘Dannyye o MOPR'e v Yaponii i yaponskikh koloniyakh (informatsiya po yaponskoy presse)’ (‘Information on Red Aid organization in Japan and in the Japanese colonies’ [from the Japanese press]), 1935, RGASPI, f.495/ op.127/ d.427/ l.130–31. In 1932, the Comintern prepared a second letter to the Formosan communists which also echoed Weng's suggestions and encouraged the Party to work on creating a Bolshevik party and overcoming factional struggle. ‘A Letter to Formosan Communists (draft)’, September 1932, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.1/ l.128–44; TK, pp. 589–600.

119 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 193.

120 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 125–32.

121 Boltanski and Thévenot, ‘The Sociology of Critical Capacity’, pp. 363–64.

122 RGASPI, f.495/ op.66/ d.6/ l.5, 6.

123 RGASPI, f.495/ op.66/ d.6/ l.5, 6.

124 ‘Resolution on the Philippines’, RGASPI, f.495/ op.66/ d.6/ l.15–17.

125 Wilson, ‘The Comintern and the Japanese Communist Party’, p. 299.

126 Adibekov and Vada, The Comintern and Japan, pp. 355–71.

127 Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, pp. 128–29; Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 17 February 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op. 28/ d.10/ l.90; TK, p. 454.

128 Pan's letter in Weng's letter to the Far Eastern Bureau, 21 May 1931, RGASPI, f.495/ op.128/ d.10/ l.164; TK, p. 575.

129 Van de Ven, From Friend to Comrade, pp. 237–39, 242.

130 See footnote 5.

131 Van de Ven, From Friend to Comrade, pp. 100–01.

132 Wilson, ‘The Comintern and the Japanese Communist Party,’ p. 287; Wang Naixin et al., Communist Movement, p. 2; Scalapino and Lee, Communism in Korea, Vol. I., p. 150.

133 See Vada, H. and Shiriniya, K. K. (eds) (2007). VKP(b), Komintern I Koreya (All-Russia Communist Party (Bolshevik), the Comintern, and Korea) 1918–1941, ROSSPEN, MoscowGoogle Scholar; Beckmann and Okubo, The Japanese Communist Party, p. 275.

134 Robinson, Cultural Nationalism, p. 151; Vada and Shiriniya, The Comintern and Korea, pp. 17, 24, 21, 15.

135 Wilson, ‘The Comintern and the Japanese Communist Party’, p. 293. Vada and Shiriniya, The Comintern and Korea, p. 30.

136 See Wilson, ‘The Comintern and the Japanese Communist Party’, p. 292.

137 Wilson, ‘The Comintern and the Japanese Communist Party’, p. 290–91.

138 Vada and Shiriniya, The Comintern and Korea, pp. 31–32.

139 Wilson, ‘The Comintern and the Japanese Communist Party’, p. 296.

140 Vada and Shiriniya, The Comintern and Korea, pp. 31, Wilson, ‘The Comintern and the Japanese Communist Party’.

141 See Thornber, Karen L. (2009). ‘Early Twentieth-Century Intra–East Asian Literary Contact Nebulae: Censored Japanese Literature In Chinese And Korean’, The Journal Of Asian Studies, 68 (3) (August), pp. 749–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

142 Mukōyama, Hiroo (1999). Riben tongzhi xia de Taiwan minzu yundong shi (A History of the National Movement in Taiwan under the Japanese Rule), Fulushou xing ye you xian gong si, Taibei, pp. 1081–082Google Scholar.

143 For the recantations in the Japanese Communist Party, see Hoston, Germaine (1983). ‘Tenkō: Marxism and the National Question in Prewar Japan’, Polity 16 (1) (Fall), pp. 96–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

144 Scalapino and Lee, Communism in Korea, p. 136.

145 Boltanski and Thévenot, ‘The Sociology of Critical Capacity’, pp. 371–72.

146 Yurchak, Alexei (2006). Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More, Princeton University Press, New JerseyGoogle Scholar.

147 Kotkin, Stephen (1995). Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization, University of California Press, BerkeleyGoogle Scholar.

148 Cheek, Timothy (1998). ‘From Market to Democracy in China: Gaps in the Civil Society Model’, in Lindau, Juan David and Cheek, Timothy (eds), Market Economics and Political Change: Comparing China and Mexico, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, Maryland, pp. 219–54Google Scholar, especially pp. 231–37.