ABSTRACT
As the Comintern’s power over the Chinese Communist Party-Guomindang United Front increased, the leaders of the Guomindang began to worry about losing their own control over the party and over the progress of the national revolution. To many, the USSR’s resolution of the railway incident smacked of “Red Imperialism.” In response to such threats, on 20 March 1926, Chiang Kai-shek placed Guangzhou under martial law, put his Soviet advisers under house arrest, and had many Chinese Communists removed from positions of authority in the Guomindang. To many Comintern theorists, Chiang’s actions appeared to portend the long-feared coup of the Right Guomindang against both the Left Guomindang and the Chinese Communist Party. An issue of primary importance to Chiang Kai-shek was the planned
Northern Expedition to reunite China. The Northern Expedition had been one of Sun Yat-sen’s highest priorities and Sun had attempted to carry it through on at least one occasion prior to his death, in 1921-22. With training provided by Comintern-recruited Soviet military advisers, the Guomindang leaders hoped that its own army could complete the job that Sun Yat-sen had started. But, Chiang’s opinions did not correspond exactly with those of the Comintern advisers, who were primarily interested in using the Nationalist Army to oust the foreign imperialists, not against northern China, where the Soviet government already had obtained tremendous power through its use of secret diplomacy. By means of his political coup of 20 March 1926, Chiang reasserted con-
trol over both wings of the Guomindang and eliminated the immediate threat posed by the Chinese Communists; this allowed Chiang to order the beginning of the Northern Expedition. To many critics of the Soviet government’s China policy-and in particular to the leaders of the newly formed United Opposition, like Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Radek-Chiang’s actions were seen as a direct threat to the United Front. Trotsky became the first major Bolshevik leader to argue that the Chinese Communists should assert greater independence from the Guomindang. However, under orders from Stalin and Bukharin, the Comintern supported the continuation of the United Front policy.
