ABSTRACT
The Northern Expedition began during the summer and continued through winter 1926. At the same time, disputes in the USSR over the Comintern’s China policy were coming to the fore. This debate was precipitated by the emergence of the United Opposition as a major faction within the Soviet leadership. Its initial demands included the recall of Ambassador Lev Karakhan from Beijing, the relinquishing of control over the Chinese Eastern Railroad, and the Chinese Communist Party’s withdrawal from the Guomindang. But, the USSR’s Fifteenth Party Conference in November 1926 (not to be confused with the Fifteenth Party Congress in 1927) called for the continuation of the United Front. Meanwhile, in China, the beginning of the Northern Expedition quickly
led to increased tensions with foreign powers-chief among them Britain and Japan-and renewed tensions between the Soviet Union and Zhang Zuolin over the joint management of the Chinese Eastern Railway. For a time, the possibility of further Sino-Soviet conflicts in Manchuria even led to a “war scare” in the Soviet Union. This was the first of what would turn out to be many such war scares throughout the 1920s and the early 1930s, which Stalin frequently took advantage of to attack and undermine his opponents. During this period, it was the Chinese Communist Party that was most at
risk. Under orders from the Comintern, it retained its close alliance with the Guomindang. The leaders of the United Opposition supported greater autonomy for the Chinese Communists, however, warning of a possible purge by the Right Guomindang. Their demand to recall Karakhan was actually a denunciation of his policy of using secret diplomacy to retain the unequal rights and privileges of the former Tsarist government. Finally, they advocated the return of Tsarist concessions to China, like the Chinese Eastern Railway.
