Article

Chinese Journal of Sociology

2015, Vol. 1(3) 380–418

The Communist Party of ! The Author(s) 2015

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China’s local leadership, DOI: 10.1177/2057150X15593712
chs.sagepub.com
organizational form, and
rural society in the 1920s,
illustrated by Zeng Tianyu
and the Jiangxi Wan’an
rebellions

Xing Ying1 and Xia Li2

Abstract
The Communist Party of China (CPC) transplanted the democratic centralism of the
Soviet Union’s Communist (Bolshevik) Party as its own organizational system in its
founding days. This system underwent difficult adjustments during the process of the
Chinese revolution. After the meeting on 7 August 1927, the CPC started organizing
rebellions in rural areas, which presented severe challenges to its organizational prin-
ciples and capabilities. The particular circumstances of armed rebellion complicated the
relationship between the local party members who organized the rebellion and the
upper levels of the party, as well as the relationship between the local party leader and
the party system. The Jiangxi Wan’an rebellion was one of the rebellions organized by
the CPC after the 7 August meeting. Zeng Tianyu, head of the Wan’an rebellion, rep-
resents a certain type of local leader of the early CPC. Moreover, the conflicts in the

1
School of Sociology, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, China
2
School of Political Science and Public Administration, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing,
China
This article has been translated into English and first appeared in the Chinese (simplified character) language in
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Corresponding author:
Xing Ying, School of Sociology, China University of Political Science and Law, 25 Xitucheng Road, Beijing,
China.
Email: yingxing@126.com
Ying and Li 381

CPC organizational system exposed in the organizing of the Wan’an rebellion were also
typical during the period of the Agrarian Revolutionary War. Employing documents,
data of organizations, memoirs, gazetteers, and journals in the fields of CPC history,
social history, and the history of the Republic of China, this article investigates Zeng
Tianyu’s life history and ethos, the background and process of the Wan’an rebellion, and
the effort and failure of the upper level of the party in its attempts to strengthen the
CPC organization in Wan’an. This article uncovers three kinds of tension in the organ-
ization of the early CPC: (1) tension between the officials’ authority and personal
factors, (2) tension between the effectiveness of the organizational discipline and the
autonomy of local leaders, and (3) tension between the organizing of the revolution and
the traditional resources and local interests. These tensions can also explain a series of
the CPC’s organizational events that happened during the same period.

Keywords
Jiangxi Wan’an rebellion, organizational form, rural society, Zeng Tianyu

Introduction
The Communist Party of China (CPC) transplanted the basic organizational
system of the Soviet Union Communist (Bolshevik) Party in its founding days.
On 1 June 1927, having approved the third resolution of the CPC constitution
(amendment), the fifth national congress of the CPC proposed explicitly for the
first time that they adopt the democratic centralism of the Soviet Union
Communist Party as the organizing principle of the CPC. However, in the early
days, most party members were students influenced by the democratic atmosphere
of the May 4 movement and thus could not adapt themselves to the highly dis-
ciplined organizational philosophy of the Leninist Party. What the youths who had
studied in the Soviet Union found most novel was ‘the relation of command and
obedience’ (Zheng, 2004: 193). You Bolun, who experienced the construction pro-
cess of the Jiangxi Communist Party, suggested in his memoir that youths in
Jiangxi, at that time, ‘were strongly against the ‘‘group discipline’’ that hinders
their personal freedom’ (Yuan, 1934: 331). Democratic centralism experienced a
long-term adjustment process in the course of Chinese Communism’s revolutionary
practices. Within this process, the Soviet revolution was a significant beginning of
another chapter after the failure of the revolution in 1927. As the cooperation
between the Nationalist Party and Communist Party collapsed, the Chinese
Communist movement encountered an unprecedented theoretical challenge.
Accordingly, confusion, anxiety, frustration, depression, and other complicated
emotions spread among the participants in the revolution. Under the guidance
of the Communist International, the upper level of the party accepted the new
phase of the revolution and the theory of rebellion which were proposed by
382 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

Communist International, and began to use the statement of Soviet revolution.

When the development of the revolution fell into a trough, to establish Soviet-style
political power and organize armed rebellion was a serious challenge to the effect-
iveness of the party organization.
A Japanese scholar by the name of Takahashi (1999: 168–180; 2006: 30–58,
112–134) proposed that the laxity of the party during the 1927 revolution had
not improved and that the situation was even worse after the end of this revolution.
His research was based on examples from the Hubei–Henan–Anhui revolutionary
bases and those in western Fujian through the investigation of three aspects: the
construction of the party, the internal connections, and the relation between
the party and external groups. Wang (2002) also pointed out that the slack state
of the Guangdong party system between 1927 and 1932 led to the party branch
existing in name only, communication problems within the party and the compli-
cation of transferring the intelligence, and the weak viability and strained capacity
of the party under the white terror. Although Wang (2002) meticulously viewed his
conclusion as purely a regional observation of the Guangdong Chinese Communist
Party, it was at least applicable to the party system which organized this rebellion.
It is insightful that the two scholars switched their foci from the party’s organiza-
tional line and personal conflicts in high-level organizations, which are the focus of
CPC organizational history in the past, to the practical operational mechanisms of
the regional organizations. However, their research focused only on the operation
of the basic party branches and the poor connections among different levels rather
than the operation of the mid-level organizations that lay between the high-level
and basic-level organizations. Wang (2013) conducted research on the initiation
and termination of the uprising in Jiangxi based on studies of the Jiangxi provincial
party committee, but his studies have not extended to the operation of mid-level
organizations under the provincial party committee, although they remain crucial
to the study of organizational form. Different post-revolutionary regional armed
riots and the establishment of bases relied on the detailed guidance of mid-level
organizations.1
A rather trendy dimension in the research on middle-level CPC organizations is
the theory of local elite. Lyman Van Slyke (Fan), an American scholar, first intro-
duced this concept by proposing the template of ‘base area studies.’ Using this
template, Slyke believed that the progress of the Chinese Communist revolution
depended on whether local cadres could implement policies from the central com-
mittee flexibly in accordance with particular cases in different areas (Fan, 1985;
Hartford and Goldstein, 1989). Averill’s (1995) research on the Jiangxi Soviet area
and Chen’s (2002) research on the Hubei–Henan–Anhui Soviet areas as well as the
western Fujian Soviet area stated, based on the template, that the revolutionaries
born in elite families were the mainstays driving revolutions in the countryside at
the very beginning. On one hand, these local cadres were the developers of the
Soviet revolution. However, on the other hand, when local interests is endangered
by the revolution, there would be between these local cadres and non-local cadres
who represent the party’s interests. The differentiation between the local leadership
Ying and Li 383

of Jiangxi and the non-local leadership proposed by He (2009a, 2009b) was prob-
ably influenced by the template. The theory of local elite brought knowledge of
local history and social history into the research on CPC history, helping us to
learn about mid-level organizations and to pay attention to the identification of
group of certain identity in local party organizations. However, it oversimplified
the complex background of local party organizations at that time and exhibited
inflexibly in differentiating between local and non-local party cadres and in explain-
ing the motivation of local cadres and the conflicts between local and non-local
cadres by their interests.
After the 7 August meeting, the CPC struggled against the side effects of Chen
Duxiu’s so-called ‘Patriarchal system,’ on the one hand and focused on strengthen-
ing intra-party democracy. Thus, the general public members of the party could
participate in policymaking and the party’s affairs (State Archives Administration,
1989b: 290, 473–474). On the other hand, the party tried to reform poor imple-
mentation of policies by enforcing political discipline. The party emphasized that
‘only the strictest political discipline can strengthen the power of the proletarian
party.’ Therefore, ‘utmost centralization of state power is necessary under current
secret circumstances. But this centralization cannot be a means of destroying intra-
party democracy’ (State Archives Administration, 1989b: 478, 305). Solving the
problems of how the paradoxical demands of centralization and democracy func-
tioned in relation to intra-party organizations and how the internal organizational
system functioned in relation to the relationship form in traditional countryside of
China was not easy. Moreover, the specific circumstances of armed riots made the
relations between local and senior party organizations as well as the relations
between local party leaders and party organizations rather subtle.
Four small-scale rebellions took place in Wan’an County, Jiangxi between
November 1927 and January 1928, which were among those that took place
around China after the failure of the great revolution. Although the first county
Soviet government in Jiangxi was established after the four rebellions, it was des-
troyed by the enemy offensive before long. The base area establishment and the
agrarian revolution could not be achieved. Therefore, the Wan’an rebellion was
situated in a less important position in CPC history in the past, and few research
was about it. However, the intra-party organizational conflicts which were revealed
in the course of preparing and organizing the Wan’an rebellion are representative.
This is inspiring for the understanding of intra-party organizational conflicts in the
establishment and development of the southwestern Jiangxi revolutionary base and
other base areas during the agrarian revolution. Moreover, Zeng Tianyu, the leader
of the Wan’an rebellion, came from a similar background, including a wealthy
family, extensive life experiences, and a positive ethos, to that of the leaders of
earlier peasant movements, such as Peng Pai, Wei Baqun, Li Wenlin, and Fu
Bocui. It is helpful for us to have a panoramic image of Communist leadership
through research concerning Zeng Tianyu’s experience and his ethos. Thus, in this
article, we have chosen Zeng Tianyu and the Wan’an rebellion in Jiangxi as study
objects for further discussion.
384 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

Procedures and problems of the Wan’an rebellion

The Wan’an rebellion happened during episodes of revolutionary preparation
after the CPC’s 7 August meeting. The main goal of the party was to organize
armed peasant rebellions throughout China (State Archives Administration,
1989b: 294–295). The Jiangxi provincial party committee initiated intra-province
rebellions as a consequence of the meeting. In late September 1927, the committee
divided the province into six rebellion areas, and established special committees to
direct the areas.2 In October, the committee chose Wan’an, which had a better mass
base, as the starting point of the rebellions in western Jiangxi (State Archives
Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 53). The party cadres – including
Yu Qiu, the representative of the bureau of the Yangtze River; Wang Qun, the
provincial party committee member; Wu Zhenpeng, the secretary of the provincial
Communist youth league committee; and Zeng Yansheng, a member of western
Jiangxi special committee – visited Wan’an successively to guide the rebellion. In
mid-October, the action committee was established as the leading organization of
the rebellion, and Zeng Tianyu, a local party member, was appointed secretary of
the council. In November, the peasant army initiated the first attack in Wan’an
County under the guidance of the action committee. After the failure of the third
attack, the peasant army initiated the fourth attack on 9 January 1928, and even-
tually occupied Wan’an County successfully and established a Soviet government
in Wan’an. On January 23, the government was evacuated from Wan’an when an
enemy offensive arrived, ending the Wan’an rebellion.
After the Jiangxi provincial party committee decided in October 1927 to initiate
rebellion in Wan’an, Wan Xiyan,3 the military correspondent of the Yangtze River
bureau and the member of the provincial party Communist committee who was in
charge of the Jiangxi rebellion investigation, arrived at Wan’an. He was extremely
dissatisfied with the leadership of the action committee in which Zeng Tianyu was
the secretary. On 24 November, after the failure of the first attack, Wan called an
emergency meeting to dissolve the action committee dismissed Zhang Shixi, the
party member of Wan’an origin, from his secretary position on the county party
committee, and nominated Yu Qiu, the representative of the Yangtze bureau from
Sichuan, as the substitutive secretary of county party committee. On 4 December,
the Jaingxi provincial party committee wrote to the special committee of western
Jiangxi to criticize various mistakes in the Wan’an rebellion according to Wan
Xiyan’s report (State Archives Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 110–
113). On December 19, the provincial party committee published a booklet about
opportunism and how to overcome it. The booklet cited different cases in the
Wan’an rebellion of examples of opportunism (State Archives Administration
and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 128–130). Later, the central Communist Party com-
mittee placed Zeng Tianyu on probation within the party as an intra-party discip-
linary measure.
Several points merit further discussion about the Wan’an rebellion. First, the
Jiangxi provincial party felt dissatisfied with the incompetence of the Wan’an
Ying and Li 385

County party committee. The operation committee was ‘governed by the minority’s
intention without party leadership.’ ‘Many followed a certain individual (so called
teacher) with no regard for the party.’ The party was ruled by this ‘tyrant’ (State
Archives Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 110–111, 159). ‘Individual,’
‘teacher,’ and ‘tyrant’ were all titles referring to Zeng Tianyu. Along with the
provincial party committee, Zhang Shixi, the secretary of the Wan’an County
party committee, also criticized Zeng in his speech at the sixth meeting of
Communist International. Therefore, what kind of revolutionary was Zeng
Tianyu? Why was he regarded as the representative of the party by the other
revolutionaries in the Wan’an rebellion? Why was Zhang Shixi, as the secretary
of the Wan’an County party committee, unable to lead the county party committee
as well as the rebellion, while Zeng could lead the rebellion and even reorganize the
committee? (Jiangxi Party History Collecting Committee and Jiangxi Party History
Research Office, 1988: 21).4
Second, the Jiangxi provincial party was dissatisfied with the fact that Zeng had
held the power of leadership in the rebellion, while disobeying orders in failing to
attack in Wan’an County,

Opposition forces in Wan’an County were weak, and only a small peasant army and
public could have occupied Opposition the county. The personnel who were in charge of
the action committee thought that it was unnecessary to occupy the county, believing that
the weak opposition forces would not make any harm, and believing that occupying the
county would disturb the region and lose the sympathy of local people. (State Archives
Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 111)

Why did Zeng think the occupation was unnecessary, and what was his concern
about ‘‘the region being disturbed’’?
Third, what measures did the central government and the Jiangxi provincial
party committee take to strengthen the local organization in Wan’an? What was
the effect of those measures?
To find the answers to these questions, we need to learn more about Zeng
Tianyu, the central figure of the revolutionary storm, as well as the status and
structure on which the storm based. We need to analyze the main figures
involved in the Wan’an rebellion as well as the background of the national
revolution. Therefore, this paper uses the methodology of documentary analysis
on documents about party history (especially on published documents about the
CPC’s organizational history, unpublished Jiangxi revolution historical docu-
ments, and information on the Jiangxi Communist Party history), historical
accounts, gazetteer of place name, gazetteer of county and province, and histor-
ical documents about the Republic of China. Combining the fields of CPC his-
tory, social history, and the history of the Republic of China. The authors also
apply the theoretical framework of sociology to discuss the historical questions
raised earlier.
386 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

Zeng Tianyu: The tension between revolutionary ideals and

organizational awareness
Zeng Tianyu was born in Cunbei village of Luotang in Wan’an County, Jiangxi in
September 1896. His father, Zeng Xiusheng, was a commercial capitalist and land-
owner. Zeng Xiusheng was the president of the Wan’an chamber of commerce.
Zeng Zhenwu, Zeng Tianyu’s elder brother, studied overseas, followed Sun Yat-
sen, and worked for the democratic revolution while studying in Japan. He was
nominated as the head of the Wan’an branch of the China Revolutionary Party in
1916. In 1919, he was selected as the councilor of the Jiangxi provincial assembly.
Zeng Tianyu’s wealthy family provided him with a good education, and his elder
brother’s experience, together with his particular historical background and the
revolutionary atmosphere of new schools, triggered Zeng Tianyu’s work for the
revolution.
Zeng Tianyu was studying in Wan’an County primary school before the revo-
lution of 1911. In 1910, Xiao Bingzhang, returning from Japan, was appointed as
principal of the school but had a secret identity as the head of the Wan’an branch
of the Chinese United League. Xiao, together with another teacher, Liu Zhenqun,
organized a student army in Wan’an to support the revolution in 1911 (Jiangxi
Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 2007: 359). From this information, it is reasonable
to infer that Zeng Tianyu may have participated in the student army, given the
close relationships he had with Xiao and Liu.
The revolution of 1911 was an anti-Qing movement led by the Chinese United
League. However, once its purpose had been achieved disagreements among the
league started to emerge, which finally led to dissolution (Li, 2002: 322). After the
Republic of China was established, different political factions dreamed of transi-
tioning the political system into a parliamentary system by assisting a particular
warlord or uniting the country by means of vertical and horizontal alliances within
the state, but failed. Within the anti-twenty-one demands movement and the May 4
movement, emotions of nationalism were provoked and new anti-imperialist and
anti-warlord goals were formed. Student groups active in the May 4 movement
became the main force struggling to achieve these goals and were also the objects
for the recruitment of the CPC established in 1921, the Chinese Youth Party
established in 1923, and the Nationalist Party reestablished in 1924 (Lv, 1994;
Wang 2010: 66–101). Zeng Tianyu finished his middle school and university studies
with this extraordinary social background.
In 1913, he entered Xinyuan middle school in Nanchang, where Zhang Guotao
was his classmate. The middle school was a private school founded by the family of
Xiong Yuxi, a renowned educator in Jiangxi, and his family. The school focused on
math and English and provided high quality teaching. Xiong Yuxi was an open-
minded person who opposed president Yuan Shikai’s declaring himself the new
Emperor of China. Thus, ‘two traditions of Xinyuan middle school were studying’?
scientific knowledge and passionate engagement in current affairs (Zhang, 1980:
30–32).
Ying and Li 387

After he graduated from middle school, in 1917, Zeng Tianyu went to Japan to
continue his studies at Waseda University. His decision to do this was influenced by
his primary school teachers Xiao Bingzhang and Liu Zhenqun’ who had overseas
study experiences in Japan and also had teaching experiences at Wan’an County
primary school. Xiao studied at Waseda University as well when he went to study
in Japan for the second time (Jiangxi Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 2007: 359).
Japan was a place where socialist ideology influenced Chinese students at that time,
and Waseda University was an important place where the ideologies of humanism
and socialism were passed on to students. Zeng Tianyu entered the university at the
time when Li Dazhao left, while Peng Pai entered the same year as Zeng. According
to the rules of Waseda University at that time, Chinese middle school graduates
had to pass a foundation program before starting their undergraduate courses
(Han, 1989: 305). Thus, there is high probability that Zeng and Peng studied
Japanese in the Seicho Chicago middle school as preparation for entering the uni-
versity. In March 1918, Zeng and Peng participated in the Chinese overseas stu-
dents’ movement struggling against the Sino–Japanese joint anti-enemy of the
military agreement. They both boycotted the university and went back to China
in May. Zeng Tianyu also participated in the Jiangxi branch of the national rescue
corps, which consisted of Chinese students who had studied in Japan (Pengpai
Research History Editorial Group, 1981: 368). Zeng had been influenced by the
socialist ideology, and provoked his anti-imperialism ideals in Japan, though he
had only studied there for a short period. Moreover, his friendship with Peng Pai
was an important factor influencing him to join the peasant movements.
Zeng Tianyu was admitted to a foundation course in the law department of
University of China in Peking in 1918 (Preparation Committee of the 10th
Anniversary of the University of China, 1923: 46). The University of China
was founded in 1911, by Song Jiaoren. Board members of the university, includ-
ing Peng Yunyi, Yao Han, and Ouyang Zhensheng, were also members of the
Chinese United League and had graduated from Waseda University. The
University of China had resembled the Nationalist Party since its founding and
struggled against the governance of warlords (Preparation Committee of the 16th
Anniversary of the University of China in Peking, 1929: 1–3). The May 4 move-
ment happened in the second year of Zeng Tianyu’s university study. Yao Han,
the dean at that time, encouraged students to participate in boycotts and protests
and supported them in these activities (Preparation Committee of the 16th
Anniversary of the University of China in Peking, 1929: 10–12). Zeng was influ-
enced by the ideology of Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao when he was in Peking. He
proposed to a friend, in Wan’an in January 1922, that they establish The Youth, a
magazine inspired by New Youth, and gained a positive response. In 1924, Zeng
wrote a letter to Chen Duxiu sharply criticizing the warlord. Cao Kun, and the
letter was published in Guidance Weekly, the official newspaper of the CPC
(Zeng, 1924).5 He participated in the ‘governing Jiangxi by local people,’ move-
ment and was elected representative of the association of Jiangxi people in
Peking, his role being to express his opinions in the office of the president.6
388 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

Zeng Tianyu’s initial work for the socialist movement was based on his ideals of
anti-imperialism and anti-warlordism. In the winter of 1921, he participated in the
Chinese socialist youth league in Peking. However, because of the weak organiza-
tion7 of the league and the university of China wasn’t situated in the central posi-
tion of the student movement in Peking, Zeng was never trained strictly by the
party organization in Peking.
When he graduated from university and returned to Jiangxi in June 1924, Zeng
became a revolutionary with a firm ideology of anti-imperialism and anti-warlord-
ism as well as socialist revolutionary ideals. However, the revolutions in which he
participated in Nanchang relied mainly on Nationalist Party organizations. In
January 1924, the Nationalist Party of China held its first meeting in Guangzhou
and adopted a strategy of cooperating with the Communist Party. The CPC mem-
bers Zhao Xingnong and Deng Heming, both from Jiangxi, were appointed prep-
aration members of the Jiangxi Nationalist Party committee and also made
responsible for establishing the CPC organization in Jiangxi (CPC Central
Organization Department et al., 2000a: 452; Jiangxi Local Editorial Committee,
2006: 4). Zhao Xingnong met Jiangxi representative Xiao Bingzhang at the first
meeting of the Nationalist Party and Zeng Zhenwu by the recommendation of
Xiao. He also knew Zeng Tianyu through Zeng Zhenwu (CPC Jiangxi Press
History Editorial Board, 1994: 35). As a result, while Zeng Tianyu studied in
Peking, he was listed among the seven candidates for membership in the contem-
porary Jiangxi Nationalist Party provincial committee by Zhao Xingnong.8 Zeng
personally joined the Nationalist Party once he returned to Nanchang, and made
good use of his social relationships in upper-class circles to found the Star book-
store and the Dawn middle school in Nanchang. The bookstore was sponsored by
the central CPC and the Shanghai executive office of the Nationalist Party, and
Zeng was the manager (CPC Jiangxi Press History Editorial Board, 1994: 35–36).
The Dawn middle school was founded in the name of officials from different
counties ruled by the Ji’an government (also known as the ‘Ten counties of
Ji’an’). Long Qinhai, the former president of the Jiangxi parliament, was appointed
chancellor, and Zeng Tianyu was appointed the general director. The Star book-
store and the Dawn middle school became important bases of Nationalist–
Communist cooperation movements (Jiangxi Government Statistic Office, 1936:
112). The first and second meetings of the Jiangxi Nationalist Party were held in
the middle school, and Zeng Tianyu was the supervisory commissioner who served
for two terms (Jiangxi Local Editorial Committee, 2006: 91–92).
Zeng Tianyu was situated in a less important position in the Jiangxi CPC system
compared to his core position in the Nationalist Party. In accordance with the con-
stitution of the Chinese socialist youth league (CSYL), Zeng was a special member as
he was over-age when he arrived in Nanchang (China Neo-democracy Youth League,
1957: 377). Thus, he could not participate in any activities organized by the league. In
November 1925, Zeng wrote to Zhang Guotao, his classmate in Xinyuan middle
school, asking Zhang to recommend him to the Nanchang Party organizations to
join the CPC. Because of the time involved in the letter delivery, Zeng did not join the
Ying and Li 389

CPC officially until February 1926 (CPC Ji’an Local Committee Party History Office,
1990: 80). Zeng traveled around Jiangxi working for both parties after becoming a
CPC member. His experience provided only weak organizational awareness of CPC,
which directly affected his behavior in the Wan’an rebellion.

The peasant movements, ethnic conflicts, and power division

in Wan’an
The background of the Wan’an peasant movements
The CPC and CSYL in Wan’an organized activities aimed at promoting revolu-
tionary ideology before June 1926. Zeng Tianyu supervised the Communist revo-
lutions in Wan’an even though he was studying and working outside the area
during this period.
As mentioned previously, Zeng wrote to his friend, Zhang Shixi, in Wan’an in
January 1922. Zhang was born into a private teacher’s family in the village of
Zhongtang, Yaotou, Wan’an County in 1894. He studied in the Second middle
school of Nanchang and the Raozhou technical school and accepted the new ideol-
ogy of May 4 in the course of his studies. Zhang was teaching in Wan’an County
primary school when he received Zeng’s letter. His position was advantageous for
organizing revolutions, and thus he invited Yan Anhua, Xiao Guanyu, Zeng
Hongyi, Wang Lisheng, and Xu Daquan to establish the ‘Wan’an youth academy’
during the winter vacation of 1922. Members of the academy were students with
similar study experiences and identical thoughts. Night courses and activity centers
aiming to produce propaganda regarding new thoughts had been set up in the town
of Wan’an, Luotang, Yaotou, and Shanghong since the academy’s establishment.
Zeng helped Zhang Shixi to found the Juhua bookstore in Wan’an and established
it as one of the bases for the revolution in May 1925. In the spring of 1926, Zeng
Tianyu and Xiao Sumin recommended Zhang Shixi for membership in the CPC.
It is easy to conclude that Zeng Tianyu and Zhang Shixi were two essential
leaders of the earlier Communist revolutionary organizations in Wan’an. Zeng
always worked outside Jiangxi, so he acted as a spiritual leader, while Zhang
acted as a practical leader as he had been teaching in the county’s primary school
and had been appointed director of the education bureau and the construction
bureau of Wan’an successively. Zhang was a standing committee member and
was one of the most important leaders of the Nationalist Party organization of
Wan’an when the county committee of the Nationalist Party was established in
February 1925. When the Wan’an executive committee of the CPC, the first party
organization in the county, was established in July 1926, Zhang was the committee
secretary (CPC Jiangxi Provincial Committee Organization Department et al., 1999:
37). Compared to Zhang, Zeng had a considerably higher reputation in terms of
general revolutionary experience, resources, and social impact. Before the peasant
movements, they shared the same ideas in terms of propaganda. However, subtle
conflicts emerged as the movements progressed, for various complex reasons.
390 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

The initiation of the Wan’an peasant movements

Peasant movements during the great revolution in Jiangxi were based on the back-
ground of Nationalist–Communist cooperation and with the encouragement of the
provincial committees of the Nationalist Party. In June 1926, which was a month
before the Nationalist Party made the decision on the northern expedition, the
Jiangxi provincial CPC committee held a joint conference twice with the
Nanchang committee of the CSYL based on the theme of the central party special
meeting in February 1926. The conferences decided to call 60 members studying or
working in Nanchang during the summer vacation back to Wan’an to support
organizations of the CPC, CSYL, and the Kuomintang of China (KMT). With
this action, the peasant movements in Jiangxi reached their peak.
This was the general developing status of the Wan’an peasant movements. It was
one of the earliest counties to start peasant movements among others in the prov-
ince. The peasant association was established in February 1925. These peasant
movements made revolution in Wan’an different than it would have been without
them. By October 1926, there were three district peasant associations, namely
Luotang, Shanghong, and Yaotou (Wan’an Local Gazetteer Editorial
Committee, 1996: 14), and 10 peasant associations in towns. The three district
peasant associations were later main bases of armed forces in the Wan’an rebellion.
For this reason, we present a brief analysis of them, as shown in Figure 1.

The peasant movement in Luotang. Zeng Tianyu was the spiritual leader in Luotang
district and throughout the whole duration of the peasant movements in Wan’an.
Zeng gained organizational resources via traditional methods, including personal
relatives, academic associates, and geographical associates. This organizational
approach was similar to the way most other educated youths organized revolutions
in their hometowns.
In terms of relatives, Zeng encouraged his family members in his hometown the
most. One-eighth of the revolutionaries who lost their lives before or during the
Wan’an rebellion were from his village.
In relation to academic associates, Zeng was based at the Wan’an County pri-
mary school and the Luotang Zhishan primary school and made good use of the
cooperative network consisting of Wen Zhang (from the village of Jiaotian in
Luotang), Liu Bingqing (from the village of Shuanglong in Luotang), Xu
Daquan (from the village of Gaokeng in Lutian), and Guo Dingyuan (from the
village of Fuzhu in Gaopi) to initiate peasant movements along the western coast of
the Gan River. Both Liu Guangwan, the chairman of the Wan’an peasant associ-
ation, and Liu Bingqing, the person in charge of the Luotang peasant association,
were recommended for membership of the CPC by Zeng Tianyu (Ministry of Civil
Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2002: 151).
In relation to geographical associates, a particular reason for the initiation of the
Luotang peasant movement was the conflicts among the Hakka people. The Hakka
people in Wan’an were living in mountain areas in the south, while local people
Ying and Li 391

Figure 1. Map of the administrative division of Wan’an County, Jiangxi during the period of the
Republic of China. The figure is based on the map of Wan’an, the map of Suichuan, and the map of
Taihe in the Jiangxi old revolutionary bases distribution map (Jiangxi Old Revolutionary Base
Preserving Committee et al., 1991).

were living in Luotang, which is at the junction of the Suichuan River and the
Gangjiang River and is the traffic hub on the west coast of the Gangjiang River.
Conflicts between the Hakka and the local people were fierce in Suichuan County.
As Suichuan was located in a mountain area, the forest industry was highly devel-
oped. Timber exporting was the pillar of the local economy (Suichuan Local
Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1996: 1–2). After the Republic of China was estab-
lished, Xiao Jiabi led the Hakka people to fight with local people more fiercely.
Xiao was of Dakeng origin in Suichuan, located downstream on the Youxi River.
392 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

He was born into a powerful family, had an aggressive personality and stirred up
several conflicts between the Hakka people and local people when he was a student.
When he returned to Dakeng, he became a Hakka leader and started a timber
business in Suichuan. His business soon expanded to cover the entire county
(Wang, 2011: 138). Moreover, the areas downstream along the Suichuan River
were under the control of local landowners, while Bizhou, near Wan’an County,
was where the Hakka people gathered (Suichuan Names of Places Office, 1987:
108). The fights between Hakka people and local people in Suichuan had spread to
Luotang, and the local people of Luotang who are threatened in timber business
had to struggle against the Hakka forces through arming in peasant association.
This situation became more fierce as the political background changed after 1927.
A peasant movement led by Nationalist–Communist cooperation was a new
type of movement for Chinese traditional society in the countryside. However,
this new type of revolution did not separate existing social networks in the trad-
itional society as well as factors that caused social conflicts, but made the tradi-
tional social networks as an organization base as well as made the traditional
conflicts involved. Zeng Tianyu had rich experience and knowledge of peasant
movements, as well as widespread connections with revolutionary bases other
than Wan’an. This experience distinguished him from leaders of other peasant
movements. In the spring of 1926, Zeng worked in Guangzhou and recommended
Xiao Bingguo from Wan’an to work in the peasant movement institute station.
This action indicates that Zeng had probably contacted Peng Pai who he had met
in Japan, the former secretary of the peasant ministry of the central Nationalist
Party and the head of the Guangzhou peasant ministry at that time, and learned
about peasant movements from Peng. In May 1926, the peasant ministry of the
central Nationalist Party nominated Zeng as the commissioner to lead the peasant
movements in Wan’an.9 This nomination to the KMT was probably a result of
Peng’s recommendation. After August 1926, Zeng was appointed to work in the
third army of the KMT revolutionary army in Guangzhou, which broadened his
understanding to include the peasant movements in Guangzhou, the core base of
KMT revolutions at that time. In early 1927, Zeng worked as a political instructor
in the third officer training regiment founded by Zhude. He brought trainees to
Wan’an and tried to train them to be leaders of peasant movements according to
Zhude’s instruction. In April 1927, Zeng was appointed commissioner of the pro-
vincial party committee and peasant association to lead movements in different
counties in northeast Jiangxi when the CPC and the leftists of the KMT distributed
the leadership of the provincial committee of Nationalist Party. All of these experi-
ences generated Zengs insight of leading peasant movement.

The Shanghong peasant movement. The principal leader of the Shanghong movement
was Liu Xinghan, who was born in Shanghong. He also developed movements
from traditional social relations, including geographic and academic relations. The
Shanghong Ziqiang primary school was the base of the movement, and Guo
Huafei, born in Wan’an, was the revolutionary guide of Liu Xinghan. Guo
Ying and Li 393

taught in the Shanghong Ziqiang primary school and later became the person in
charge of the CPC Ji’an organization. Liu became the principal of the primary
school after his graduation from Jizhou middle school in Ji’an in July 1925. Guo
and Liu organized the revolutionary ‘Forward organization’ in the Shanghong
Ziqiang primary school. Guo recommended Liu to join the Communist youth
league in November, and in December, Liu set up the fifth group of the youth
league branch in Ji’an in the Shanghong Ziqiang primary school (State Archives
Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986a: 274, 290). In the spring of 1926, Liu
transferred as a party member (CPC Ji’an Local Committee Organization
Department et al., 1990: 10). The Wan’an executive committee, the first party
organization in Wan’an, was established in the primary school in July (CPC
Jiangxi Provincial Committee Organization Department et al., 1999: 37). The
party organization appointed party member Peng Ling to teach in the school.
Based on the above organizational foundation, the district peasant association
was established with Liu Xinghan as the director.
The geographic factors in the Shanghong movement were very similar to those
in Luotang. The Shushui River is another main river in the Suichuan county in
addition to the Suichuan River. The Shushui River is divided into left and right
forks in northern Suichuan, and these come together at Shuangqiao, after which
the river flows through Shanghong until it feeds into the Gangjiang River at the
Shukou delta in Taihe County (Suichuan Local Gazetteer Editorial Committee,
1996: 111). Northern Suichuan was ruled by Xiao Jiabi and Li Shilian, another
Hakka leader. Gaopi was a place in northwest Wan’an next to Shanghong, where
local groups mixed with Hakka people. Guo Mingda, the despot of Gaopi, fol-
lowed Li Shilian despite his local identity after the conflicts happened between him
and the peasant association. Local people lived in Gaopi, the Shukou delta, and
Taihe (Taihe Names of Places Committee Office, 1986: 7, 226, 329). Thus, conflicts
between the local people and the Hakka people became more fierce in Shanghong
and Gaopi. In the summer of 1927, the Shushui River flooded, and the massive
timbers flowing down the river caused conflicts between the local public and the
Hakka businessmen. Li Shilian was invited by Hakka businessmen to fight against
Liu Xinghan’s army, which consisted of peasant members of the associations in
Shanghong and Taihe. The battle lasted two whole days, and the Hakka army was
beaten. Li Shilian burned the Ziqiang primary school and the houses of the local
leaders, including Liu Xinghan’s house, in the name of ‘‘purge of the Nationalists’’
(Taihe Local Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1993: 827).

The Yaotou peasant movement. The main leader of the Yaotou peasant movement
was Zhang Shixi. In February 1926, the KMT provincial party committee in
Jiangxi decided to strengthen the peasant movements in the areas along the
Gan River, Poyang Lake, and Nanxun Road (Jiangxi Local Editorial
Committee, 2006: 247). Zhang Shixi, as the person in charge of the KMT
Wan’an County committee, was the leader of peasant movements in the county.
However, the base of his movements was his hometown, Yaotou. The movements
394 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

in this county depended on traditional social relations as well, but they were
relevant to traditional clan conflicts, which were different from the movements
in Luotang and Shanghong.
There were two villages in the Yaotou district: Yaotou and Shanxi. Yaotou was
the most important market on the eastern bank of the Gan River and was ruled by
the Yan family. However, the major family names of the villages nearby were not
Yan. Therefore, Yan’s family owned only a narrow strip of land (Jiangxi Wan’an
Names of Places Office, 1987: 37–39). Since the Republic of China, Catholic
churches had been spreading rapidly along the riverbanks in Wan’an. Yan’s
family tried to snatch fields in the name of building churches, but other families
protested against the action. Yan’s family also frequently oppressed ordinary
people from other families (Wan’an Local Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1996:
853). Shanxi was located on the bank of the Tongjin River across from Yaotou,
and therein concentrated the Kuang family, who had some powerful government
officials in the dynasties. The Third Qiming primary school in Shanxi was the base
of political activities at that time (Jiangxi Wan’an Names of Places Office, 1987: 46–
47). Three families started fighting against the Yan and Kuang families based in the
First Qiming primary school in Yaotou.
One of these was the Zhang family in the village of Zhongtang in Yaotou.
Many famous revolutionaries, including Zhang Shixi, Zhang Yidao, Zhang
Shigang, Zhang Shizhan, and Zhang Shizhe, chairman of the peasant association
in the Yaotou district, were born in this village. The revolutionaries of the family
were not limited to this village but extended into areas all over the town (Jiangxi
Wan’an Names of Places Office, 1987: 38–39, 44; Wan’an Local Gazetteer
Editorial Committee, 1996: 47). The second family to initiate conflicts with the
Yan and Kuang families was the Xiao family in the north and east of Wan’an.
Xiao Bingzhang, the founding member of the KMT, was born in the village of
Louxia, Shanxi. He maintained his interest in the left wing and gained a good
reputation among the local people. He founded three primary schools, namely the
First Qiming primary school in Yaotou, the Second Qiming primary school in
Jiaoyuan, and the Third Qiming primary school in Shanxi. The Third Qiming
primary school in Shanxi became the base of the opposition force, while the
others became revolutionary bases (Jiangxi Wan’an Names of Places Office,
1987: 47; Wan’an Local Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1996: 68). Influenced
by Xiao Bingzhang, people in Xiao’s family often joined peasant associations.
The third family to start conflicts was the Liu family in Yaotou and the village
of Badou of Shanxi. Liu Li, the secretary of the Yaotou district committee, and
Liu Guansan, the military instructor in the self-defense corps of peasants in
Wan’an, were famous representatives (Jiangxi Wan’an Names of Places Office,
1987: 42–43).
Although clan conflict was not the primary factor that brought about the peas-
ant movements in Yaotou, it was an important trigger in initiating them. Research
on peasant rebellions in northeastern and southern Jiangxi provides evidence of
this importance (Chen, 2004: 80–87; Xu, 2013: 307–312).
Ying and Li 395

The Wan’an peasant movements developed rapidly. Six district peasant associ-
ations and more than 300 village peasant associations had been established by the
end of 1926. Memberships in these associations exceeded 49,500 (Wan’an Local
Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1996: 554, 559). Seven representatives, which was
the largest population of representatives among the counties, were from Wan’an in
the first provincial peasant congress in Jiangxi, held in February 1927 (CPC Jiangxi
Provincial Committee Party History Collecting Committee and Jiangxi
Agricultural University, 1993: 83).

The development of the peasant army and revolutionary power division

in Wan’an
As the peasant movements developed in Wan’an, a self-defense corps was estab-
lished. This corps was the county-level peasant army as well as the most powerful
army among the others in the county. It experienced a transfer of power following
its establishment.
A celebration over the success of the northern expedition was held on 10
October, 1926 in Wan’an. Zeng Tianyu and Zhang Shixi hosted a party member
conference on 11 October, decided to set up a self-defense corps in Wan’an, and
founded district arsenals and nitrate-sulfonated factories to make weapons. After
preparing for several months, the self-defense corps was established in February
1927. Forty soldiers were selected from district peasant associations. The impacts
of the three district associations can be inferred from the arrangement of the corps
establishment.
It was Zeng Tianyu who proposed the establishment, and the base of the corps
was Luotang, Zeng’s hometown. The food supplier was the Luotang peasant
association. These facts point to the impact of Zeng and the Luotang peasant
association on the self-defense corps. The leader of the corps was Liu Chengqing,
a teacher in the Shanghong Ziqiang primary school. This indicated the power of
the Shanghong peasant movement led by Liu Xinghan. The political instructor
was Zhang Songyou, born in the village of Zhongtang, Yaotou, and the military
coach was Liu Guansan, born in the village of Badou, Yaotou. Two-thirds of the
leaders were from Yaotou, indicating the power of Zhang Shixi and his Yaotou
peasant association.
The power of Shanghong, Luotang, and Yaotou were in a situation of tripartite
confrontation at the establishment of the corps. Though the corps originated in
Luotang, Zeng Tianyu was not always there. He led the corps by providing a
military site and covering only the costs instead of practical instructions. Zhang
Shixi’s power was mainly in Yaotou, and he had limited control of the corps based
on the west of the Gan River. Liu Xinghan had less experience than and not as high
a reputation as Zeng and Zhang and Shanghong is at the margin of Wan’an, so he
was less likely to lead the corps.
In early June 1927, Zhu Peide, the president of the Jiangxi provincial government,
fought against the CPC openly and expelled the CPC members and the left-wing
396 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

KMT members from Jiangxi. Zeng Tianyu returned to Wan’an with the open iden-
tity of the inspector of the Jiangxi education bureau (Xiao Bingzhang was the sec-
retary of this provincial bureau) as well as the secret identity of the commissioner of
the CPC provincial committee. He devoted himself to revolution in Wan’an, and the
changes in Suichuan which was adjacent to Wan’an drew more of Zeng’s attention to
the control and development of the self-defense corps in Wan’an.
In Suichuan, early revolutionaries like Chen Zhengren and Wang Cicou were
local people. In September 1926, the northern expedition army occupied Suichuan.
Chen Zhengren established the Suichuan special branch of the CPC and took
charge of the KMT county committee as a provincial party instructor. He devel-
oped worker and peasant movements, provoking the anger of the local gentry such
as Luo Puquan, who was in charge of the county. After the 12 April counter-
revolutionary coup in 1927, the local retired soldiers Li Yongzhou and Luo
Xiaolan set up a local military organization called ‘The military accompanying
club’ to fight against the CPC. Xiao Jiabi was involved in the fight, though it
should have been confined to conflict among the local people. In April 1927,
Xiao Jiabi, the director of the department of finance and grain of Suichuan
County, withheld the financial support for the Suichuan branch of the KMT.
When Xiao went to Nanchang in May, he was then taken into custody for more
than 40 days and charged with the crime of ‘sheltering military weapons’ as
reported to Zhu De, director of the Nanchang public security bureau, by Wang
Cicou. Many CPC members in Suichuan were arrested by the local gentry and their
armies, and only a minority of individuals, such as Chen Zhengren, escaped from
the purge action (Chen, 2007: 20; Wang, 2011: 38). Chen Zhengren had a close
relationship with Wan’an. He was born in Da Wu Chang, the eastern village of
Suichuan, near Luotang. When he was studying in Ji’an, his nominator to join
KMT was Luo Xing, who was born in Wan’an, and his nominator to join the
socialist youth league was Guo Huafei, who was also born in Wan’an. In the winter
of 1925, when Chen was wanted, the Ji’an CPC assigned him to the Shanghong
Ziqiang primary school to work for the Wan’an revolutions with the identity of a
teacher. So he naturally moved to Luotang with Wang Cicou and the others after
the incident. Chen needed the urgent help of the self-defense corps to rescue the
people who had been arrested in Suichuan. In the meantime, the local landowner
would not let Chen Zhengren go, and Xiao Jiabi was so aggressive that he would
take revenge after being released from prison, which made Zeng Tianyu the target
of those conflicts since he agreed to shelter Chen Zhengren and the others. It was
essential that he strengthen his army in order to either save Chen Zhengren or fight
against Xiao Jiabi’s Hakka force and Luo Puquan’s local force.
Zeng Tianyu started to try different methods of collecting weapons and reor-
ganizing the army. In late June 1927, he asked Chen Zhengren to borrow 11
guns from his classmate, Liang Yiqing, in the central workers’ association of
Ji’an.10 Through Chen, Zeng were able to build a closer relationship with Liu
Xinghan, who was Chen’s fellow in the ‘Forward organization’ when he was
teaching in the Shanghong Ziqiang primary school. Moreover, Shanghong and
Ying and Li 397

Luotang were faced with attacks by the Hakka forces led by Xiao Jiabi, so the
organizations of these two areas formed an alliance. In the battle of Suichuan on
July 28, Zeng Tianyu had 10 gunmen from the central workers’ association of
Ji’an, 20 assistants from Shanghong, and 40 from Luotang. Before this battle,
Yang Deming, who once followed He Long, led more than 30 soldiers and
brought 11 guns to Luotang from Fujian. Zeng Tianyu incorporated them
into his own force. Yang Deming later took over the position of self-defense
corps leader from Liu Chengqing. This change in the self-defense corps showed
that the Wan’an self-defense corps was under the control of Zeng Tianyu and
that members from Luotang were in the majority. This conclusion is also
demonstrated by the military component in the battle of Suichuan. During
July and August 1927, Zeng led three battles against the local and Hakka
forces of Suichuan and achieved the aims of rescuing, grabbing the gun, and
self-defense.11 Zeng used his salary to buy more than 10 long-barreled guns and
handguns once he was back in Wan’an. Moreover, he collected over 30 guns
from KMT deserters for five times after the three battles and strengthened the
power of his force.
In addition, other villages in Wan’an established their own arsenals and
strengthened their forces. For example, the Yaotou district peasant association
established arsenals and nitrate-sulfonated factories to create over 1000 spears
and 400 air guns. Leaders in Yaotou were active in organizing armies not only
for the clan reasons mentioned, but also because while the self-defense corps had
become Zeng Tianyu’s force, Liu Guansan went back to his hometown to organize
his new army. In late October, he led a peasant rebellion in Shanxi with thousands
of people against Kuang’s family, cooperated with the peasant army in Shitang,
and destroyed the Third Qiming primary school in Shanxi, saving Xiao Chun, the
teacher of the Frist Qiming primary school, and confiscating Kuang’s property
(Dai, 1988: 218–219).
In addition to the places mentioned above, two other areas developed armed
forces. One was Shitang, which is next to Yaotou. The forces there were led mainly
by Xiao’s family in the village of Lantian in Shitang, and the leaders included Xiao
Zilong, Xiao Yucheng, and Xiao Ruchang. The Xiao families in the villages of
Lantian, Yaotou, Shanxi, and Leitang in Guanchao village, Taihe shared the same
ancestor (Jiangxi Wan’an Names of Places Office, 1987: 27,73; Taihe Names of
Places Committee Office, 1986: 251). The leader of the Taihe self-defense corps,
Xiao Baqun, was born in the village of Leitang (Taihe Local Gazetteer Editorial
Committee, 1993: 824). Therefore, there was a significant amount of cooperation
amongst these three armies. The army led by Xiaos in Lantian was besed at the
village of Maoping and set Maoping as the base of district committee of CPC.
Thus, it was also called the Maoping peasant army. It had been given an official
name probably, the seventh division of the revolutionary army of workers and
peasants in western Jiangxi.
Another force was from the Liangkou area in southern Wan’an where, estab-
lished of CPC organization by Zhu Xidong. He studied in Nanchang at an early
398 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

age and worked for the revolution under the guidance of Zeng Tianyu. He went
back to his hometown in September 1925 and participated in revolutionary activ-
ities in the name of teaching, while gradually developing his own army (Office of
Party History of the Gan County Committee, 2011: 4).
The five areas mentioned here were the locations of the district committees
established in Wan’an until October 1927. Among those locations, Luotang and
Shanghong, located in western Wan’an, were led by Zeng Tianyu, because
Shanghong was distant and located west of the Gan River, and both places
were under pressure from the Hakka forces. Chen Zhengren built the connection
between Zeng Tianyu and Liu Guangwan, the revolutionary leader of
Shanghong. Thus, Zeng’s reputation had developed in these two areas. Yaotou
and Maoping, however, were located east of the Gan River, so the social conflicts
caused by the peasant movements were different from those in the west, and the
armed forces were developed independently. Though Zhang Shixi started to work
for revolutions under the influence of Zeng Tianyu, he had a good reputation in
the peasant movements of both the CPC and the KMT. Moreover, Yaotou was
the grain-producing area of Wan’an, which achieved a rather important position,
with a positive status in terms of economic and educational development, as well
as a good revolutionary foundation. Thus, Zhang Shixi had his own sphere of
influence in Wan’an. The four former districts were in northern Wan’an, while
Liangkou in the south was distant from the others. Thus, Liangkou was deemed a
third force area which cooperated closely with nearby Gan County,12 but it had a
rather loose connection with Wan’an. Zhu Xidong, however, the leader of
Liangkou, was guided by Zeng Tianyu, so he mostly agreed with Zeng’s authori-
tative position.
In terms of military force, Zeng Tianyu built up a well-equipped army which was
much better than the army of Zhang Shixi. First, Zeng’s self-defense corps had
dozens of guns and even cannons. These weapons were important in battles at that
time, and were not equipped by other districts in Wan’an. The Yaotou arsenal, on
the other hand, had only old, basic weapons, which were much less powerful than
rifles. Second, Zeng Tianyu was the practical leader of the local army. He
instructed his army in practical matters from weapon collection to force develop-
ment, while Zhang Shixi did not participate in rebellions himself, though he influ-
enced several corps. In particular, he was unable to directly control the peasant
army in Maoping. In short, Zeng Tianyu obtained much more military resources
than Zhang Shixi.

Was the Wan’an rebellion prompted by concern over ‘the

region being disturbed’ or concern over ‘the revolution being
distorted?’
According to the revolutionary history of the Wan’an rebellion described here,
Zeng Tianyu was the most significant revolutionary leader in Wan’an. Among
the revolutionists, the image of the CPC was not abstract but embodied in an
Ying and Li 399

individual, Zeng Tianyu. As one of his followers stated, ‘He is the creator of Jiangxi
Province, who carried out all of the projects in the western areas of Jiangxi
Province’. Zeng not only possessed capabilities, leadership, resources, and a net-
work, he also had an ambitious plan composed of revolutionary ideals, a high
revolutionary vision, and broad revolutionary knowledge. When the revolution
intensified the existing social conflicts, Zeng did not cater to this conflict or try
to increase his own regional profit and influences within the group, as the regional
elites did in the description by other scholars (Chen, 2002). Instead, Zeng worked
to coordinate the powers of different groups and control any possible regional
conflicts, and aimed to develop this revolution along the path toward its most
basic goals. It is certain that the realization of Zeng’s revolution ideals underwent
more and more difficulties, as the central party’s guidelines about organizing regio-
nal riots after the 7 August meeting were implemented and the internal divergence
from the party leaders arose. It is still undeniable that Zeng achieved considerable
success through his efforts to realize his ideals because of his strong capacities,
despite his having a weak notion of organization.
In early September 1927, the Jiangxi provincial party committee received the
decisions of the 7 August meeting and then drafted the ‘Plan for the autumn har-
vest rebellion’ and the ‘Guidelines for instigating the autumn harvest rebellion’ on
11 September (CPC Central Organization Department et al., 2000b: 1295; State
Archives Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 7). In mid-September, by
sending Zhu Jingyun to Nanchang, Zeng recovered his connection with the pro-
vincial committee, which had been suspended, after which he became aware of the
plans for this revolution. In October, after the committee set Wan’an as the starting
venue of the western Jiangxi rebellion, Wang Qun, the committee representative,
held a meeting for the colleagues who took charge of Ji’an, Wan’an, and the other
counties and established an action group with Zeng Tianyu as the secretary to
provide guidance for this revolution (CPC Jiangxi Provincial Committee Party
History Collecting Committee and CPC Jiangxi Provincial Committee Party
History Research Office, 1987: 43). After this time, another meeting was held at
Zeng’s home for the party activists of Wan’an County. This meeting announced the
list of action committee members, who chose the military staff, including Zeng
Tianyu, Zhang Shixi, and Xiao Sumin as the military agents of the rebellion.
Meanwhile, the meeting set up three divisions under the action committee: the
first was composed of peasant association members from the urban area and the
first area (including Jiaoyuan, Shanxi, and Yaotou) was led by Zhang Shixi; the
second was composed of peasant association members from Shaokou, Gaopi,
Baitu, Shanghong, etc. and was led by Liu Xinghan; and the third was composed
of members from Baijia, Luotang, and Lutian and was led by Liu Guangwan
(Wan’an Local Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1996: 47). The three divisions of
peasant armies were obviously divided according to the influence spheres covered
by the peasant associations. The power of the second and third divisions generally
corresponded to that of the peasant associations in the Shanghong and Luotang
regions. As for the first division, the Yaotou and Maoping associations were
400 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

combined into one due to their close connection. The force at Liangkou did not
participate in the last few attacks on the city because of its remote location. On 10
November, the Wan’an self-defense corps of peasants was officially constituted as
‘the fifth division of the western Jiangxi industrial agriculture revolutionary troops’
by the special committee of the western Jiangxi region. The division consisted of 60
people with 41 guns and were led by Yang Deming as the group leader and Chen
Zhengren as the party representative (Wan’an Local Gazetteer Editorial Committee,
1996: 47–48). This division were the very first Communist force with the character-
istics of a standing army in Jiangxi, and the elite force that was directly controlled by
Zeng Tianyu.
How, then, did Zeng Tianyu execute this command of rebellion from the upper
level of the party after he took control of the commanding rights and the elite force?
We need to consider the relevant commands from the Jiangxi provincial party
committee first. The committee had divided the counties into three types: those gov-
erned by peasant forces, those with capable peasant forces, and those with the experi-
ence of peasant movements or the support of local gangsters. The above classification
was formulated in the ‘Plan for the autumn harvest rebellion’ in September 1927.
Moreover, the committee set different tasks for the three types of counties respectively.
At that time, due to limited knowledge of Wan’an, the committee first set Yongxin as
the starting venue, classifying Wan’an as a county ‘with experience of peasant move-
ments or the support of local gangsters’ (State Archives Administration and Jiangxi
Archives, 1986b: 23). Wan’an replaced Yongxin as the starting venue in October.13
The Yangtze River bureau even suggested that the provincial committee ‘move to the
Ji’an or Wan’an immediately’ on 17 October (Luo, 1999: 310). Consequently, in the
final rebellion plan, Wan’an was regarded as the county ‘governed by peasant forces.’
For this type of county, the command stipulated,

The following should be implemented in no time: slaughtering despotic gentry and reac-
tionaries, confiscating the land of evil landlords, establishing new political power among
peasants, expanding troops without limitation, removing the armed forces of reactionar-
ies . . . spreading influence into all the other counties in the neighborhood even throughout
the whole province, and allying with other rebellion forces from neighboring regions such
as Hunan and Hubei. (State Archives Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 23)

To put it simply, the committee required that Wan’an arrest and kill despotic
gentry as soon as possible, take over the county, and establish new political
power in order to mobilize other counties in the western Jiangxi region.
Zeng Tianyu and Zhang Shixi held two different attitudes toward these com-
mands. The first difference lay in the slaughtering of despotic gentry in the rural
areas of Wan’an. In response to urging by the representative of the Jiangxi special
committee, Zeng Yansheng, Zhang actively followed this command. Under
Zhang’s leadership, the peasants of the first region, Yaotou, besieged and slaugh-
tered Yan Genli, Chen Xiutang, and other four despotic gentry by ruining their
houses, and confiscated all the property of the ‘Yi Feng Hang,’ founded by evil
Ying and Li 401

landlords in Baijia. At the same time, in the Luotang region, Zeng started several
night schools for peasants, reduced and refunded land rents, banned gambling and
opium, and so on. Violators were only exposed to the public or confined. Despotic
gentry were never slaughtered. Furthermore, Zeng also tried to prevent Zeng
Yansheng and Zhang Shixi from conducting such massacres again. In October
and November 1927, Zeng might even have attempted to reconstruct the county
committee of Wan’an through a meeting of representatives from the three regions
(State Archives Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 110). However, exist-
ing historical information is not yet sufficient to provide any details about the
reconstruction. The reason for the reconstruction was probably Zeng Tianyu’s
dissatisfaction with Zhang Shixi’s vigorous behavior. Additionally, Zhang Shixi
and Zeng Tianyu had different attitudes toward the county assault. Zhang criti-
cized the passivity of Zeng’s rebellion and claimed that ‘policies on the rebellion
cannot be hindered by the preparations of it’ while Zeng suggested that it was not
necessary to launch this attack even though they we were capable of it, especially
because of the risk of ‘disturbing and corrupting a region’ (State Archives
Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 111).
Why, then, did Zeng not follow the committee’s command to attack the city,
establish political power, and slaughter the despotic gentry? What exactly was the
meaning of ‘disturbing and corrupting a region?’ If we review related history
meticulously, we can understand Zeng’s painstaking efforts to control regional
conflicts and consolidate different revolutionary powers early in this rebellion.

The conflict and alliance between the indigenous people and the
Hakka people
Wan’an County aggregated a group of native inhabitants while neighboring
Suichuan County possessed a fierce armed force of pacification guards, which
was controlled by a Hakka individual named Xiao Jiabi. Xiao’s force even attacked
the troops led by Mao Zedong during the autumn harvest uprising movement in
October 1927 (Central Document Research Office, 2013: 223). However, Xiao Jiabi
did not control all the regional armed forces in Suichuan County, some of which
were regulated by an indigenous person called Luo Puquan. The antagonism of
Xiao Jiabi against the Communist Party was worsened not only by the accumu-
lated resentment between the two ethnic groups for generations, but also by the fact
that the industrial agricultural forces led by Mao Zedong were based mostly within
the mountain regions controlled by the Hakka people instead of in the areas of the
county controlled by the native people. The resentment and antagonism between
the two groups escalated to the confrontation between the Hakka force in the
Suichuan region and the native force on the western coast of the River Gan in
Wan’an. Since August 1927, the property of the despotic gentry, including that of
Xiao Jiabi, had been confiscated, and the channels toward the River Gan were
blocked. At this point, if Zeng still actively organized forces with which to assault
Wan’an County, there would definitely be internal unrest among the indigenous
402 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

people, which Xiao Jiabi could take advantage of in order to strike the county
easily.14
According to this description, Zeng’s unwillingness to attack the city was
based on the interest of the Wan’an native group, and he aimed to deepen the
barriers in between. In fact, Zeng, as the most capable revolutionist in Wan’an,
had a comprehensive understanding of the local stability. His aim was to dis-
courage the Hakka people’s attack, rather than intensify the conflict between the
two groups. On the contrary, Zeng purposely tried to enhance their alliance in
order to benefit the revolution, as can be proved by his relation with Xu
Daquan.
The relation between the Hakka and the native ethnic groups in Wan’an was
already rather complicated. On the one hand, they competed with one another; on
the other hand, they were dependent on each other. The Hakka people living in the
mountains possessed wood, tea, oil, and other folk products, while the native
ethnic group in Wan’an controlled the grain supply, which the Hakka people
needed. Despite their mutual demands for food products, the two groups were
also complementary in terms of craftsmanship. The indigenous people often
learned Chinese boxing and kung fu from the Hakka people, while the Hakka
people often came to study at the private school hosted by the indigenous
people. Sometimes, Hakka intellectuals might be hired by the indigenous people
to teach at their local school. Accordingly, the two groups developed into teachers
and students, and sometimes classmates.
The upbringing of Xu Daquan reflected the alliance of the Hakka people and
the indigenous group. Xu was a Hakka from Gaokeng, Lutian. After he graduated
from the Nanchang No. 1 high school in 1922, he became a teacher at the Luotang
Zhishan primary school, where he was hosted by the indigenous people.15 By this
time, Zeng Tianyu had already treated Xu Daquan as his most important revo-
lutionary ally for a long time. In January 1922, Zeng established the ‘Wan’an
youth society’ with Xu. In September 1924, when Xu Daquan was nominated
by the Luotang people to accuse the county principal, Di Zunian, of charging
unlawful military taxes in Nanchang, he was living at the house of Zeng Tianyu’s
brother, Zeng Zhengwu. Then, he assisted Zeng Tianyu in organizing the Star
bookstore and the Dawn middle school in Nanchang. In 1926, having become a
party member, Xu Daquan also worked at the party branch where Zeng was
secretary. After that, he returned to Luotang as a member of the standing com-
mittee of the Nationalist Party and the secretary of the CPC in Luotang. After
Zeng Tianyu returned to Wan’an in June 1927, the Luotang Zhishan primary
school had always been his major stage on which to conduct revolutionary activ-
ities, with Xu as his most reliable clerk. When the action committee was estab-
lished, Xu Daquan was the clerk. When the Soviet government was established
after the success of the rebellion, Xu was appointed as the director’s clerk.16
According to the above, Zeng did not show any prejudice toward the indigenous
people at all, but, on the contrary, was purposely encouraging the alliance between
the two groups.
Ying and Li 403

The clan as landlords and the clan as revolutionary allies

As previously illustrated, the major conflict underlying the peasant movement and
the class riot was actually among different clans, not between peasants and land-
lords, as was perceived ideologically. As for the conflicts between the different
clans, it is reflected clearly by the situation on the east coast of the Gan River in
Wan’an. When the conflicts became intense in the name of revolution, a far-sighted
revolutionary leader should have endeavored to control and remedy the situation,
enabling the clans to stimulate the revolution instead of inhibiting its development.
This situation was on Zeng Tianyu’s mind when he made the commands to post-
pone the city assault and when he held back the leaders on the east coast from their
slaughtering actions.
At that time, Liu and Xu were the two biggest and most powerful families in the
town of Wan’an County, where the Liu lineage was located mainly in the west, south,
and north of the town, as its nickname ‘the Liu who owned half of the town’ sug-
gested, and Xu established a stable alliance with Liu. Thus, the assaults against the
south and west gates of the town mainly jeopardized Liu’s and Xu’s family proper-
ties. Liu, however, had always been the significant allied force to the national revo-
lution. The Wan’an rebellion would never develop smoothly without Liu’s support,
because many counties and especially schools, like the advanced primary school run
by the town, were key venues for revolution to become established during the 1927
period (Huang, 2011; Wang, 2013). In 1925, the central of the CPC formulated a
‘Resolution bill on the rural teacher movement’ which clearly regarded rural schools
as the starting point of the peasant movements. The Wan’an advanced primary
school was where the Wan’an rebellion began, and it was the Liu family that sup-
ported this school during this time. From 1914 to 1923, Liu had been the director of
the Quanxue office, which was responsible for the administration of education at the
town level. Around the time of the revolution of 1911, Liu Zhenqun began to teach in
the Wan’an advanced primary school, now having a progressive mind following his
graduation. In 1927, Liu Zhenqun was appointed acting town head at Gao’an
County in Jiangsu Province after his participation in the northern expedition
during the national revolution. Zhang Shixi also started his revolution organization
work in Jiangsu. When the party branch of the Nationalist Party was established in
Wan’an County in 1925, Liu Kaishi held the post of secretary (Wan’an Local
Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1996). Additionally, the Xiao family was another
powerful lineage in the town, where its influence covered the area near the east gate.
Xiao Bingzhang who was mentioned previously, was an important protector and
supporter of this rebellion. As a result, if the peasant army was given unlimited
permission to slaughter the despotic gentry and conduct a city assault, which was
rather prevalent after the 7 August meeting, the interests of the revolutionary allies
and the protectors like Liu, Xu, and Xiao would be badly damaged, causing diffi-
culties for the Wan’an CPC in unifying its alliance for further revolutionary work.
The above consideration may also explain Zeng’s prevention of the disruptive
behavior instigated by the leaders on the east bank of the Gan River. For example,
the peasant army on the east bank once robbed Yi Feng Hang, a store in the village
404 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

of Baijia. Yi Feng Hang, or Yi Feng Tang, was founded by Liu and paid for by the
rent from public fields of Liu’s family. It was a store owned by the Liu family and
was its ancestral hall. The disrespect shown by the peasant army’s destruction was
much more hurtful to the Liu family than the financial loss caused by this robbery.

The organizational foundation of the revolution and the destruction of the

slaughter command
As illustrated earlier, Zeng’s revolutionary troop was constructed by a traditional
social connection. In Wan’an, there were actually very few landlords or large-scale
businessmen like Liu’s family. Tenant farmers only accounted for 20% of the
population, while peasant half-owners and owners accounted for 75%. The busi-
nessmen had only small or medium-sized amounts of property. These peasant half-
owners, peasant owners, and minor businessmen, united by geographic and other
relations, were actually the participators and sympathizers of the revolution. Thus,
burning and slaughtering behaviors17 prevailing during the rebellion would have
directly ruined the organizational foundation. The peasant association in the name
of the Nationalist Party was actually established on the collapsing power founda-
tion of warlords. However, as the peasant movement developed in a more progres-
sive way, it would eventually disorganize the structure of the local power and even
affect the internal organization of the revolutionary troops. The peasants’ resent-
ment in the process of the rebellion would create an especially serious contradictory
force. In January 1928, after the peasant army occupied Wan’an County, they not
only confiscated a large amount of property from the so called ‘bureaucrats’ cap-
ital, despotic, and evil gentry,’ but they also hurt some individual craftsmen by
taking away their tools for heating metals. After these actions, when the peasant
forces on the east bank of the Gan River and those from Liangkou were united
against those from Huangtang, it was the army’s destructive behaviors that caused
farmers at Huangtang to stand firmly against the peasant forces and follow the
campaign of ‘protecting the region’ proposed by the gentry. Although it all took
place after the peasants’ assault on Wan’an County, the far-sighted Zeng had
already predicted that those destructive behaviors would certainly ruin the foun-
dation of the relation with the masses. He would also have realized that the destruc-
tive activities which aimed to force the minor capitalists into the group of
proletariats by ruining and burning all of their property would not work but
only have the opposite effect.

The collapse and continuation of the cooperation between the Nationalist

Party and the Communist Party
After the Wuhan Nationalist Party branch announced its separation from the
Communist Party on July 15, 1927 – although in August the CPC still considered
that this rebellion should be ‘organized’ under the leadership of the left wing of the
Nationalist Party – the party proposed in September that the Wan’an rebellion
Ying and Li 405

would not be carried out under the name of the Nationalist Party afterwards and
started the Soviet revolution (State Archives Administration, 1989b: 335, 370).
However, this decision made by the central party would encounter many difficulties
when it was put it into practice in the different regions; for example, a decision
could not reach the regional branch in a timely manner. Zeng Tianyu knew that the
CPC had changed its attitude toward the Nationalist Party, because the provincial
party committee had already announced this change on October 8. Meanwhile,
Wangqun, the representative of the provincial committee transmitted the message
about establishing Soviet power to Zeng Tianyu at his home in October (State
Archives Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 40). Given this fact, why
did Zeng Tianyu still not strictly follow the commands from the central party and
the provincial committee?
First, the ‘clearing party’ policy was implemented in a rather simple and rough
way. On 25 June 1927, the leader of the party-clearance troop, who was from
Wan’an, was executed after he returned to Luotang. Nationalist Party troops led
by Liu Shiyi did not occupy Wan’an County until July, while the villages of
Wan’an did not experience party-clearance at all (Jiangxi Party History
Collecting Committee and Jiangxi Party History Research Office, 1988: 265–
266). As a result, the peasant movement power developed in the Wan’an rebellion
was kept relatively intact, and Zeng still kept the name of the peasant association
to appeal to the people (State Archives Administration and Jiangxi Archives,
1986b: 112).
Second, the reason why Zeng was rather determined to resist the separation of
the two parties was the situation in Wan’an and his own experiences. As illustrated
earlier, Zeng was once deeply rooted in the Nationalist Party of the Jiangxi
Province, but he was relatively marginalized in the Communist Party. He surely
had firm revolutionary beliefs in communism and broadly recognized the left wing
of the Nationalist Party. Therefore, he never quit trying to ally with the Nationalist
Party. Chen (2002: 155–156, 188–189), in his research on the regions of Hubei-
Henan-Anhui Soviet area, discovered that the local Communist members were still
acting in the name of the Nationalist Party at that time. He suggested that this was
because those members were controlled by the benefits of local elites. As for Zeng,
his devotion to the rebellion was not to protect or improve his interest within the
local group. His disobedience was due to his opinions concerning the development
of revolution. What concerned Zeng Tianyu was not the possibility of ‘disturbing
the region’ but actually that of ‘distorting the region.’
If Zeng did not agree to attack the city, then why did he start his first assault in
Wan’an County on 19 November in a seemingly careless way? In fact, this was due
to a coincidence. On 14 September 1927, Lai Shihuang, the army commander of the
14th Nationalist Party troop of Jiangxi Province located in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, was
arrested in Shanghai over the conflicts within the Nationalist party (Guo, 1985:
258). After this time, the Nationalist government of Jiangxi Province sent Li Sisu,
who was the principal of the Nanchang police bureau, to incorporate the rest of the
forces of the 14th troop in Ganzhou. In October, when Li passed Luotang on the
406 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

ship back to Nanchang, he was attacked by the peasant forces from across the river
and deprived of four guns. In November, after he had finished relieving the 14th
troop, Li Sisu prepared to return to Nanchang, while being protected by an armed
group from the 14th troop. When he passed Wan’an again, he decided to claim the
guns of which the peasant forces had previously deprived him. On 19 November,
having assigned soldiers to search the Luotang Zhishan primary school, he found
slogans or declarations of the Communist Party everywhere in the school. He
immediately headed back to Wan’an County and was intending to return to
Ganzhou the next morning for more troops with which to suppress Luotang.
Having received the news, Zeng and Wu Zhenpeng, who at that time was the
provincial committee secretary, decided to take the initiative by assaulting
Wan’an overnight, but the attack ended in failure due to the weak capacity of
the peasant force (State Archives Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b:
200).

The effort and failure of the upper levels to strengthen the

organization of the party
Zeng had ideal, strong abilities but a rather weak notion of organization. The
above features led to his over-confident need to control everything earlier in the
rebellion. However, the upper levels of the party would not permit this situation.
In order to strengthen the organization of the party, the provincial committee took
several measures.
In fact, the provincial committee meeting, which established the action commit-
tee of the Wan’an rebellion, clearly determined that the action committee should be
led by and affiliated with the special committee of western Jiangxi (State Archives
Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 110). This affiliation was hard to
realize, however. There were two leading elements, the first of which was the
weak power of this special committee. After it was established, the position of
secretary remained vacant. Zeng Yansheng was the only person to take over the
administration as the representative of the committee, and only Zeng Yansheng’s
wife, Yuan Zhenya, and a few other people were staffing this committee.
Accordingly, the special committee was too small to operate effectively, and it
became weak and impotent. In contrast, the action committee was fully equipped
with seven committee members, including Yu Qiu, who was the representative of
the CPC Yangtze River bureau, and Wang Qun, a representative of the provincial
committee.18 It was also affiliated with a military staff and three other divisions of
the peasant army at the same time. In addition, Zeng Yansheng, as the represen-
tative of the western Jiangxi special committee, was also a member of the action
committee led by Zeng Tianyu. If Zeng Tianyu was able to hold onto his post as
major principal of this rather advanced institution, this situation was actually
because of his family background, his prestige, his seniority and the resources he
possessed. As a result, the action committee was a relatively independent directory
institution during the Wan’an rebellion. Under this circumstance, it was difficult
Ying and Li 407

for the special committee of western Jiangxi to have any leading power. When Zeng
Yansheng worked in Wan’an between October and November, his major respon-
sibility was to promote the campaign of ‘cleaning up opportunism’ led by Zhang
Shixi, during which he published against and sentenced many ‘colleagues who were
not actively working’. At the end of November, Zeng Yansheng organized new
regions in Taihe County and established the Ji Wan Tai liaison station (Office of
Party History of Ji’an County Committee, 1992: 518–519). The preceding events
prevented the special committee of western Jiangxi from being able to look into the
work of the acting committee.
The secretary of the county committee, Zhang Shixi, was appointed as a member
of the action committee and military staff and the major director of the first div-
ision. This situation meant that he was one of the leaders of the Wan’an rebellion
and that the Wan’an County committee led by Zhang had execution power only,
and no decision-making power only, in the rebellion. Thus, the county committee
could ‘never be held accountable for the rebellion’ (State Archives Administration
and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 110). The real reason for this situation was not the
limited responsibilities of the different positions, but the fact that Zhang Shixi
could not compete with Zeng Tianyu in terms of experience, resources, social net-
works, and influence.
However, the Jiangxi provincial committee had the power to control Zeng
Tianyu. Zeng’s passive attitude toward the city assault and his unfinished assault
in November due to lack of preparation angered the committee. On 24 November,
Wan Xiyan, the special military commissioner of the Yangtze River bureau and a
standing committee member of Jiangxi Province, held an emergency meeting in
Wan’an dismissed Zhang Shixi from the secretary of the county committee, and
appointed Yu Qiu from Sichuan, then the representative of the Yangtze River
bureau and secretary of Wan’an youth league committee, as the Wan’an provincial
secretary of the CPC.
Wan Xiyan was a cadre who was transferred from Hubei to Jiangxi in mid-July
1927. He knew very little about the local cadres in Wan’an, including the position
of Zeng Tianyu. Luo Yinong, who was the secretary of the Yangtze River bureau,
was quite dissatisfied with the cadre in Jiangxi Province (Yuan, 1934: 339–340), so
he assigned many other cadres to the Jiangxi provincial committee. These external
cadres did not trust the local members either. What Wan Xiyan did was give Zeng
Tianyi a severe penalty, depreciate Zhang Shixi, and hand the county committee
over to the new cadres.
Zeng Tianyu had never taken a post in the special committee of western Jiangxi
and the Wan’an County committee. His identity as special commissioner of the
Jiangxi provincial committee ended when the cadres from Hubei took control of
the committee in June 1927. Thus, when the action committee was abolished on 24
November, Zeng was no longer qualified to be a cadre within the organization
system of the CPC. However, this situation did not alter his position as the chief
leader in the Wan’an rebellion, because he still held the elite armed forces firmly in
hand. The next day, on 25 November, to follow the requirement of the Taihe
408 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

County committee, the assault against Taihe County was conducted according to
the original plan by the united forces of Wan’an and Taihe, with Zeng Tianyu still
leading the Wan’an force without any title.
The second assault in Wan’an County took place on 24 December and was
initiated by the Yaotou people attacking the enemy forces across the border,
instead of by Zeng Tianyu or Wan’an county committee (Jiangxi Party History
Collecting Committee and Jiangxi Party History Research Office, 1988: 32, 42).
Although the masses who attacked the county withdrew from their encirclement,
they still required the county committee to reorganize another attack within five
days (Jiangxi Party History Collecting Committee and Jiangxi Party History
Research Office, 1988: 42). On 31 December, the county committee organized a
third city assault to fulfill their promise to the local people, but it ended in another
failure due to bad timing.
Although the three Wan’an assaults were precipitated by different causes, people
on the banks of the Gan River were all mobilized. This assault and directives from
the upper levels of the CPC19 prompted another assault. The problem that Zeng
and the other major directors faced was how to minimize destruction of the county
during the assault. Around that time, Mao Zedong wrote to ask whether any
assistance for this rebellion was needed. The county committee meeting held at
Zeng’s home eventually decided to invite Mao’s troops for the assault on Suichuan
County. It also assigned Zeng to ambush the Suichuan enemies on the only route
from Suichuan to Wan’an and, if possible, take Wan’an after Mao’s victory in
Suichuan. On 9 January 1928, after the occupation of Suichuan County by the first
section of Mao’s industrial agricultural force, many enemy soldiers were ambushed
by Zeng’s forces while escaping to Wan’an. After they had been chased into
Wan’an County, the enemy forces that had stood by in Wan’an abandoned the
county, and Wan’an was then occupied by peasant forces.
A celebration convention was held on 11 January 1928, and the Soviet govern-
ment was established. Zeng Tianyu was one of the chairmen of this convention.
The county level government president Zeng nominated was his close friend from
Luotang, Liu Guangwan. The director secretary of the Soviet government was also
the intimate ally of Zeng, Xu Daquan.
As soon as the Soviet government was established, the CPC’s punishment of Zeng
was transferred to Wan’an County. The central party announced criticisms of the
past work of the Jiangxi party branch in the ‘working plan of Jiangxi’ on 13
December 1927 after their investigation of the Wan’an rebellion, stating that ‘the
masses were already prepared to fight, but were suppressed by the related party
members due to the destruction of the organization.’ It also suggested that ‘the
colleagues who were responsible for the industrial agriculture movements left a
very negative impression on people, and must be given severe penalties which
should be announced to the masses to save the party’s reputation in the masses’
(CPC Central Document Research Office and State Archives Administration, 2011:
770–771, 774). After this announcement, the central party decided to place Zeng on
probation within the party. Zhou Enlai once recalled what happened in 1927, saying
Ying and Li 409

that, ‘another mistake in the expansion meeting in November was formulating the
political disciplines. This decision was proposed by an international representative
and was very new to us’ (Zhou, 1980: 172). Even a leader who had advanced to the
upper echelons of the central party as Zhou had was feeling uneasy about this pol-
itical discipline, in which a leader was punished due to the failed rebellion, not to
mention Xu Daquan, who did not know what political discipline was at all. As
Zeng’s close ally, Xu decided to take the punishment on his own. It is said that
Zeng felt upset when he learned about the penalty from the central party. However,
he did not react to it due to the intensifying battles at that time. If time had per-
mitted, Zeng would certainly have protested to the upper levels in the party.20
On 23 January, as the Nationalist troop sent massive forces to attack Wan’an
County, the county committee decided to abandon the area. During their with-
drawal, the peasant forces were divided into two separate troops, one of which,
from the west, was led by Zeng, the other of which, from the east, was led by Zhang
Shixi. On 5 March, Zeng died after being ambushed in Luotang. Zhang returned to
the mountain area near Shanxi. After confronting the enemies for a while, he was
not able to carry on the attack and left Wan’an in disguise (Wan’an Local
Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1996: 15).

Conclusion
Chen (2002: 82) noticed that the CPC during the 1927 revolution and the early
stages of the Jiangxi Soviet was far from a strictly disciplined Bolshevik Party in
which orders were followed; instead, people ‘believed in the CPC much less than
they believed in local elites.’ However, what Chen did not realize was that this
phenomenon implicated some significant features of the early CPC system. The
following outstanding features are exposed by focusing on the life history of Zeng
Tianyu and the Wan’an rebellion in Jiangxi.

Tension between officials’ authority and personal factors

A system based on democratic centralism seems to suit some of the essential prin-
ciples of the purely rational course of action defined by Weber. For example, the
system ‘is organized by clearly-defined ranks,’ ‘the right of every position has clear
regulation,’ ‘members of an organization obey a commander not because of that
particular individual but because they follow an objective order,’ which is ‘the right
of the organization provided by rules and defined by regulation,’ and every position
should have the necessary administrative methods to fulfill its tasks, while the offi-
cials are completely separated from the ownership of the administrative methods
(Weber, 2004: 309, 313). Nevertheless, it is only in ideal conditions that members of
an organization obey a rational regulation and follow the right path as defined by the
organization instead of listening to an individual. The real-world situation was far
from this during the beginning stages of the CPC’s founding of the party and
the army. The ‘personalization’ of the authority system and the ‘individual
410 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

ownership’ of administrative methods often led to great tension between position

and authority within the organization. In fact, the authority of officials was not
granted by their position but instead by their own resources, seniorities, or prestige.
The action committee in the Wan’an rebellion, nominated by the Jiangxi provincial
party committee but led by western Jiangxi special committee, was an authoritative
decision-making organization and could command any action of the rebellion.
However, the authority of the action committee was not granted by the Jiangxi
provincial party committee, nor was it by virtue of belonging to the western
Jiangxi special committee. It was the personal resources, seniorities, and prestige
of Zeng Tianyu, secretary of the action committee, that created the authority. Zeng
Tianyu was the senior official after the reestablishment of the Jiangxi Nationalist
Party; meanwhile, he played an important role in founding the Jiangxi Communist
youth league and the Jiangxi Communist Party. He possessed significant wealth as
well as wide networks. He recommended several important officials (including the
secretary of the Wan’an County party committee and the head of the agricultural
organization) of Wan’an when they joined the party. He was the actual commander
of the self-defense corps of peasants (later the fifth division of the western Jiangxi
workers and peasant corps), Wan’an’s most crucial farmer forces. Therefore, senior
position, economic capital, networking resources, and army forces facilitated Zeng
Tianyu to retain sole leadership in the Wan’an rebellion.
Meanwhile, the relationships between one position and the others also depend
on the personal characteristics of the individual holding the position. The action
committee was only nominally led by the western Jiangxi special committee, which
was too weak to command the strongly-armed action committee. Although the
rebellion happened in Wan’an, Zhang Shixi, secretary of the Wan’an County party
committee, who was brought to the revolution by Zeng Tianyu, had influence
mainly in Yaotou, in the northeast of Wan’an. Therefore, even though there was
no clear regulation within the party of the relationships between the Wan’an
County party committee and the action committee, the county party committee
implemented the decisions made by the action committee as if it was an affiliation.
In addition, the action committee of the rebellion led by the CPC was not supposed
to be affiliated with the Nationalist Party’s farmer association. However, Zeng
Tianyu’s revolutionary resources mainly came from the Nationalist Party. The
foundation of his farmers’ movement in Wan’an was the Nationalist Party’s
farmer association, and there was little ‘purge of the Nationalists’ in the rural
area of Wan’an after the 1927 revolution. As a result, Zeng Tianyu was able to
use both the CPC’s action committee and the Nationalist Party’s farmer associ-
ation to motivate and command people.

Tension between the effectiveness of organizational discipline and the

autonomy of local leaders
In order to ensure that the orders from above were effectively implemented, the
CPC was affected by Communist International after the meeting on 7 August 1927
Ying and Li 411

and started strengthening its methods of political disciplinary punishment. Despite

these actions, during the early stages of the CPC’s revolutionary practices, the
implementation of any orders from above or a disciplinary decision made by super-
ior officials was not based on the relationships between higher and lower positions;
instead, it depended to a large extent on three factors: whether the superior officials
could provide the necessary resources, whether there was contrast between the
higher and lower officials regarding their seniorities and prestige, and whether
there were personal connections between the higher and lower cadres. In the exam-
ple of Wan’an, the orders from above and the disciplines were ineffective because of
these three factors. First, although the action committee was implemented accord-
ing to the decision of the Jiangxi provincial party committee, it was not provided
with any resources for the rebellion by the provincial committee. Zeng Tianyu
depended on his own resources to get weapons, army forces, and capital. This
action enabled him to be almost independent of the provincial committee.
Furthermore, Zeng Tianyu had prestige in Wan’an and even across the whole
Jiangxi Province. On the contrary, the leaders of the provincial committee
during the Wan’an rebellion were mainly non-local cadres transferred from
Hubei. They were not familiar with Jiangxi and lacked prestige. In addition,
there was no social bond such as a blood relationship, hometown, or education
between Zeng Tianyu and the Hubei cadres. This led to the lack of a smooth
personal relationship between Zeng Tianyu and the provincial committee. As a
result, after the provincial committee ordered him to attack the city and establish a
government as soon as possible, Zeng Tianyu in fact delayed the order for his own
consideration. When the provincial committee and the central committee ordered
that Zeng Tianyu be subjected to organizational disciplinary punishment, it was
not effective. His loss of the position did not hinder him from continuing to exercise
his power because he still had his personal resources and prestige.

Tension between the revolution organizing and traditional resources and

local interests
During the CPC’s peasant movements and rebellions, the organizational resources
often came from the traditional relationships of the Chinese rural societies – for
example, families, relatives, schools, and hometowns. A local CPC’s leader might
regard these traditional resources as an organizational base, so it was impossible
not to focus on the preservation of these resources and reflect local interest to some
extent. How to handle the tension between local and revolutionary interests mainly
depends on the vision and experience of the local leaders themselves.
An opportunist would no doubt use the ambiguities of the system and the actual
control of the resources to benefit their own or local interests. In contrast, an
idealistic revolutionist could start from local knowledge, realize the infeasibility
of the orders from above, and therefore be flexible in order to avoid negative
influences on the reputation of the entire party. In the case of Wan’an, although
Zeng Tianyu did not have a strong sense of organization, he was dedicated to
412 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

higher causes and was more broadminded. Therefore, he maintained a revolution-

ary aspiration beyond local interests during the practice of the Wan’an revolution.
He was able to use his own local authority and resources to ease the potentially
exacerbating local collisions and meanwhile delay the too ‘leftish’ order of burning
and killing for the overall benefit of the revolution and the party.
In general, a good party relationship requires local cadres to have revolutionary
aspirations beyond their own local interests. They could use their local authority
and resources to ease possibly intensifying local conflicts. Gradually they should
develop a ‘sense of organization,’ by which they obey the orders from above even if
the orders conflict with their local or partial interests or their own ambition.
In addition, if the non-local cadres are not able to provide any resources, not
equipped with higher individual authority, and have no relationships with the
local cadres, then their orders or disciplinary punishments are either completely
ineffective or serve only to intensify conflicts with the local cadres. During the
Wan’an rebellion, the disagreement between Zeng Tianyu and the provincial
party committee did not evolve into serious confrontations only because Zeng
Tianyu was running out of time in which to deal with an intense war.
Nevertheless, by studying Zeng and Wan’an, we are able to identify some
common major obstacles the CPC faced in the early stages of the revolution.
When the Jiangxi provincial party committee criticized Zeng Tianyu, there had
been a series of severe confrontations in both the Nationalist-controlled area and
the new-born Jiangxi Soviet. For instance, the Shunzhi provincial committee inci-
dent occurred in August 1927, the collisions between the party and the youth league
occurred in Hubei in December 1927, etc. Although the tendency of extreme dem-
ocracy was criticized by the CPC’s sixth national congress, the debate between
democracy and centralism did not end. In 1929, the Shunzhi incident was not
yet resolved, and the Jiangsu provincial committee incident resulted in a
Nationalist-controlled area. Meanwhile, a dispute between Mao Zedong and
Zhu De arose in the CPC’s army. In December 1930, Li Wenlin and Fu Baicui,
important leaders of the southwest Jiangxi and west Fujian bases respectively, were
purged at almost the same time. Although all these events had their own compli-
cated causes, the disputes and confrontations demonstrate the tensions, which we
have discussed. There is still a long way to go before completing the adjustment of
the CPC’s democratic centralism.

Funding
This paper was supported by the ‘Revolutionary Party and rural society: a study of the
organizational form of early Chinese Communist Party’ project (14XJA840016), sponsored
by the Philosophy and Social Science Fund of the Ministry of Education of China.

Acknowledgments
In a sense, this article was the research achievement of the historical sociology group of the
China University of Political Science and Law, instructed by the first author and Fang
Huirong. Ms Fang provided essential assistance with the perspectives hypothesis, the
Ying and Li 413

analysis framework, and the details. The authors appreciate the active participation of the
group members, including Qingyan Meng, Ma Xuejun, and Qi Qun. We also thank social
science and history scholars both in China and overseas who provided comments, inspir-
ation, and encouragement to us, including Zhou Feizhou, Qu Jingdong, Huang Daoxuan,
Wang Qisheng, Du Lihong, Xu Xiaohong, Luo Lin, Yang Nianqun, Zhou Xueguang, and
Luomin. Thanks also to Tian Qing for editorial help.

Notes
1. There were frequent changes in early CPC organizations at different levels. This paper
divides levels of party organizations according to the third resolution of the CPC regu-
lation (amendment) issued on June 1, 1927: senior-level organizations, including central
and provincial organizations; mid-level organizations, including municipal or county-
level organizations; and basic-level organizations, including district and basic branches.
Special committee organizations were abolished in this resolution, but in fact, this kind
of organization was established under the heading of provincial organizations during the
rebellions of 1927–1928. Some areas even established operation committees. These spe-
cial committee organizations and operation committees were regarded as mid-level. The
authors appreciate Huang Daoxuan and Du Lihong’s kind reminder regarding this
point.
2. In fact, only northern, western, and southern Jiangxi special committees were estab-
lished (CPC Jiangxi Provincial Committee Party History Collecting Committee and
CPC Jiangxi Provincial Committee Party History Research Office, 1987: 66).
3. Wan Xiyan was the military commissioner of the Yangtze River bureau.
4. The complete letter was to the western Jiangxi special committee from the Jiangxi pro-
vincial committee in the Jiangxi revolution historical documents on 4 December 1927
(State Archives Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 106–113). The selection is
quoted here because it contained the word ‘(Zeng) Lan (Wan)’ and Zeng Lanwan was
Zeng Tianyu’s pseudonym.
5. Zeng Nanwan was Zeng Tianyu’s pseudonym.
6. The evacuation movement by the Jiangxi people in Peking was published in the seventh
page of Shun Pao on 20 January 1921.
7. The Peking youth league announced an evacuation and reorganized in 1924 (State
Archives Administration and Beijing Archives, 1991: 85–86).
8. Zeng Guoxiang was the former name of Zeng Tianyu mentioned in the document
(Jiangxi Government Statistics Office, 1936: 11).
9. See the ‘Was the Wan’an rebellion prompted by concern over ‘‘the region being dis-
turbed’’ or concern over ‘‘the revolution being distorted?’’’ section. The central peasant
committee appointed Zeng Tianyu as the local commissioner (April 26, 1926) (Wang,
2011: 30).
10. Xu Daquan mis-identified the person who lent guns to Chen Zhengren as Liang
Mingzhe. Chen Zhengren, Liang Mingzhe, and Liang Yiqing were classmates in the
Jiangxi Province Seventh Normal University. Liang Yiqing was the chairman of
the Ji’an workers’ association, not Liang Mingzhe. His picketers got weapons from
the reorganized second division of the KMT (CPC Jiangxi Provincial Committee
Party History Research Office, 1989: 47).
11. In August 1927, the county defense corps was established in Suichuan County, with Li
Kun as the leader, who was also the head of Suichuan county. A local citizen, Luo
414 Chinese Journal of Sociology 1(3)

Puquan, was the head of the third and fourth corps, and Xiao Jiabi, a Hakka, was the
head of the first and second. This was regarded as equal division of military power
between the local and Hakka forces. Xiao’s force had 200 gangs, while Luo’s had 150.
Xiao Jiabi was appointed as the general head later. Thus, the Hakka force was more
powerful than the local force (Suichuan Local Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1996:
343; Wang, 2011: 139).
12. The story of Zhu Xidong was recorded in the revolutionary history of Gan County
(Office of Party History of the Gan County Committee, 2011: 34).
13. The reason the provincial committee changed the starting venue to Wan’an might be
related to two people: the first was the secretary of Ji’an County committee, Zhang
Yidao, who was from the village of Zhongtang of Yaotou, Wan’an. He was very famil-
iar with Wan’an. During his tenure, he wrote to the provincial committee about the
Wan’an peasant movement. The other person was Chen Tanqiu, the organizational
director of the Jiangxi provincial committee. In early October, the secretary of the
Jiangxi provincial committee, Wang Zekai, went to report to the Yangtze River
bureau, leaving Chen Tanqiu to hold his post temporarily. Chen wrote a report about
the origins of the Wan’an peasant movement and decided to replace Yongxin with
Wan’an as the center of the western Jiangxi rebellion (State Archives Administration
and Jiangxi Achives, 1986b: 53).
14. The third confrontation between Zeng and Xiao forces, in early August 1927, was
initiated by Xiao’s assault on Wan’an County. In December 1927, the pacification
guards of Wan’an, Sunchun, and Taihe collectively suppressed the peasant forces of
Wan’an County. The forces, which aimed to eliminate the Luotang region, also
belonged to Xiao Jiabi. They burned Zeng’s house at Cunbei village (Wan’an Local
Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1996: 46–47).
15. There is no exact information about Xu Daquan’s place of origin. However, according to
‘an abridged edition of the family history of Xu’ most of the Xu family in Wan’an was
scattered across southern Wan’an, while others in northern Wan’an were gathered
around the village of Gaokeng in Lutian, Tangshang in Baijia, and the town of
Wan’an county. The village of Gaokeng was populated by the Hakka people, while
the village of Tangshang and Wan’an County accumulated indigenous people.
However, Xu Daquan was possibly a Hakka from Lutian. Baijia was separated from
Luotang by the Gan River and had a relatively developed economy and education. If Xu
was from Baijia, he would have taught in his hometown after his graduation instead of
rushing off to Luotang, which was on the other side of the Gan River. The Xu family was
the second biggest family in the county town so if Xu Daquan was from this famous Xu
family, he would have taught in Wan’an County primary school. The reasonable explan-
ation for Xu teaching in the Luotang Zhishan primary school was that he was from
Gaokeng in Lutian, where the levels of economic prosperity and education were low.
Therefore, Xu chose to teach in Luotang, which was located close to his hometown, on
the western bank of the Gan River, and was relatively developed in terms of the economy
and education. Furthermore, there is information in the introduction about the markets
in Lutian that mentions Xu Daquan. This provides further evidence of his place of birth.
16. This information is according to Xu Daquan’s reminiscences of 23 April 1969. See also
He (1992: 25–27), Wan’an Local Gazetteer Editorial Committee (1996: 871), and Xu
(1988b: 133–136).
Ying and Li 415

17. The policy being implemented at that time was ‘three slaughters and five resistances’
(slaughter despotic gentry, evil landlords, and reactionaries and resist donations, rents,
taxes, debts, and the surrender of food), which aimed to destroy the forces of the
gentries, landlords, bureaucrats, and all the other reactionaries through the political
power of the people, leading to ‘the big harassment in the old regions’ (State
Archives Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 164–165).
18. Members of the action committee included Yu Qiu as the representative of the Yangtze
River bureau, Wang Qun as the representative of the Jiangxi provincial committee, Zeng
Yansheng as the representative of the Western Jiangxi special committee, Zhang Shixi as
the secretary of the Wan’an County committee, Liu Guangwan as the secretary of the
Wan’an peasant association, Chen Zhengren as the propaganda director of Wan’an
County committee, and Zeng Tianyu (Wan’an Local Gazetteer Editorial Committee,
1996: 47).
19. In the ‘What is opportunism and how to root it out’ program proposed by the Jiangxi
provincial committee on 19 December, the committee required regions like Wan’an to
overcome the opportunism mistake of the fear of fierce combat (State Archives
Administration and Jiangxi Archives, 1986b: 128–130). On 21 December, the Jiangxi
provincial committee proposed Wan’an as the starting point of the rebellion in the
southwestern Jiangxi in an emergency announcement. It also urged Wan’an to conduct
the city assault as soon as possible, and to join forces with those from Suichuan,
Yongxin, Lianhua, and Ninggang (Jiangxi Party History Collecting Committee and
Jiangxi Party History Research Office, 1988: 29–30).
20. Wang (1994: 184), who was the revolutionary colleague of Zeng, once described Zeng as
‘short-tempered’, adding that ‘when he was dissatisfied with Zhao and said that Zhao
did not dare to do anything.’

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