The plan to take Kiangsi Province within a year was also proposed
last April by the Front Committee to the Central Committee, and a decision to
that effect was later made at Yutu. The following reasons were given in the
letter to the Central Committee:
The armies of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kwangsi warlords are approaching
each other in the vicinity of Kiukiang, and a big battle is imminent. The
resumption of mass struggle, coupled with the spread of contradictions among
the ruling reactionaries, makes it probable that there will soon be a high tide
of revolution. As for how our work should be arranged under these
circumstances, we feel that, so far as the southern provinces are concerned,
the armed forces of the compradors and landlords in Kwangtung and Hunan
Provinces are too strong, and that in Hunan, more over, we have lost almost all
our mass following, inside as well as outside the Party, because of the Party's
putschist mistakes. In the three provinces of Fukien, Kiangsi and Chekiang,
however, the situation is different. First, militarily the enemy is weakest
there. In Chekiang, there is only a small provincial force under Chiang
Po-cheng. [11] In Fukien, although there are five groups of enemy troops
totalling fourteen regiments in all, Kuo Fengming's troops have already been
smashed; the troops under Chen Kuo-hui and Lu Hsing-pang [12] are bandits of small fighting capacity; the two brigades of
marines stationed along the coast have never seen action and their fighting
capacity is undoubtedly not high; Chang Chen [13] alone can put up some sort of a fight, but, according to an
analysis made by the Fukien Provincial Committee, even he has only two
relatively strong regiments. In addition, Fukien is now in a state of complete
chaos, confusion and disunity. In Kiangsi, there are sixteen regiments under
the two commands of Chu Pei-teh [14] and Hsiung Shih-hui; [15] they are stronger than the armed forces of either Fukien or
Chekiang, but far inferior to those of Hunan. Secondly, fewer putschist
mistakes have been made in these three provinces. We are not clear about the
situation in Chekiang, but the Party's organizational and mass base is somewhat
better in Kiangsi and Fukien than in Hunan. Take Kiangsi for example. In
northern Kiangsi we still have some basis in Tehan, Hsiushui and Tungku; in
western Kiangsi the Party and the Red Guards still have some strength in
Ningkang, Yunghsin, Lienhua and Suichuan; in southern Kiangsi the prospects are
still brighter, as the 2nd and 4th Regiments of` the Red Army are steadily
growing in strength in the counties of Kian, Yungfeng and Hsingkuo; and what is
more, the Red Army under Fang Chih-min has by no means been wiped out. All this
places us in a position to close in on Nanchang. We hereby recommend to the
Central Committee that during the period of prolonged warfare among the
Kuomintang warlords, we should contend with Chiang Kai-shek and the Kwangsi
clique for Kiangsi Province and also for western Fukien and western Chekiang.
In these three provinces we should enlarge the Red Army and create an
independent regime of the masses, with a time limit of one year for
accomplishing this plan.
