ABSTRACT
By early March 1927 troops of the National Revolutionary Army had brought significant areas of central and eastern China under their control. A Guomindang government led by so-called “Left” Guomindang members had moved from Guangdong to the central Chinese city of Wuhan, a conglomerate composed of three towns, of Hankou, Wuchang, and Hanyang. Comintern agents informed Moscow of the upsurge of a mass worker-peasant movement in the Yangzi River valley. On February 19, 1927, the workers of Shanghai launched a political struggle, and three days later their general strike grew into an armed uprising. Although it was suspended on February 24, it appeared that the general situation in the country had become sharply radicalized. Under these circumstances, Stalin now attempted to resume an aggressive policy within the GMD. In February, the Politburo adopted urgent measures to assist the return to China of Wang Jingwei, the leader of the Guomindang “leftists,” who was then living in France. With Wang Jingwei’s return (via Moscow 1 of course, where Comintern officials were ready to discuss Chinese affairs with him), the Soviet leadership quite logically placed its hopes on the strengthening of the Guomindang’s leftist faction.
