The Foreign Powers, the Warlords,
and the Revolution
(April 10, 1923)

In the last analysis, can the unification of China be realized or not? Leaving aside
what we hear from ignorant and presumptuous people such as Zhang Shaozeng¹,
everyone understands that it is impossible in the near future. There is no way in
which the various influential factions within the country can be made to unite at
present. Union is, of course, not the same as just mixing them together, so for the
present such things as "meetings of the provinces," "consultative conferences on
national affairs," or even sending delegates to consult the leaders of the various
factions are nothing but empty talk. If we analyze the influential factions within
the country, there are only three: the revolutionary democratic faction, the nonrevolutionary democratic faction, and the reactionary faction. The main body of
the revolutionary democratic faction is, of course, the Guomindang; the rising
Communist faction is cooperating with it.² Formerly, the nonrevolutionary dem-

This article appeared in the first issue of Xin shidai in 1923. We have translated it from the
text as reproduced in Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 2, pp. 109–11.
been disbanded, its only direct descendant for the moment is the Research
clique. The faction of the rising intellectual class, [led by] Hu Shi, Huang
Yanpei, and others, and the faction of the rising commercial class, [led by] Nie
Yuntai, Mu Ouchu, and others also belong to this faction. The reactionary faction
is the most extensive and comprises the Zhili, the Fengtian, and the Anhui

cliques. (Although for the moment, the Fengtian and Anhui cliques are cooperating with the Guomindang, this cannot last long, for they are after all the most
reactionary.) Of these three factions, the first two will wish to cooperate henceforth for a certain period. Because the reactionary forces confronting them are
extremely great, the Research clique, as well as the intellectual and commercial
factions, will temporarily abandon their nonrevolutionary views and cooperate
with the revolutionary Guomindang, just as the Communist Party has temporarily abandoned its most radical views in order to cooperate with the relatively
radical Guomindang. So in the future, the political situation in China will take
the following form: on the one hand, the most advanced Communist faction and
the moderate Research clique, intellectual faction, and commercial faction will
all cooperate with the Guomindang to form a great democratic faction in order to
overthrow their common enemies; on the other hand, there will be the reactionary warlord faction. The outcome of this political situation in China will be the
victory of the democratic faction over the warlord faction, but in the immediate
future and for a certain period, China will necessarily continue to be the
realm of the warlords. Politics will become even darker, the financial situation will become even more chaotic, the armies will further proliferate, industry and education will become yet more stagnant, the methods for the oppression of the people will become even more terrible. To put it bluntly, the
mask of democracy will be further ripped off, completely reactionary feudal
politics will be imposed, and this kind of situation may last for a period of eight
or ten years.
How do we know that it will necessarily be like this? Just look at how
reactionary the political system of international capitalist imperialism is! Right
now they are coordinating their steps to invade China. Formerly their moves
were not coordinated. After some discussion at the Washington Conference, 12
they have become coordinated. Although their coordination will eventually break
down, at present and in the near future, in order to make up for the loss they
suffered from the last World War and to store up energy for the next, they will
definitely want to take measures aimed at coordination. The fact that the United
States Open Door policy could be accepted by England, France, and Japan,
which possess spheres of influence in China, is clear proof of this. In itself, the
division of China is not advantageous to international capitalist imperialist aggression; a China united by the democratic factions would, however, be even
more disadvantageous to international capitalist imperialism than a China thrown
into confusion by the struggle between the democratic and warlord factions. For
them, the most advantageous situation would be the complete subjection of
China to reactionary politics. This is the principal reason why China is at present,
and will remain in the near future, the domain of the reactionary warlords. The

White Wolf¹³ and the "Old Foreigners" were able to band together several tens
of thousands of followers in the Henan area and to harass several provinces.
More than 90 percent of the people are uneducated. Except for the little industry
and commerce along the coast and along the railroads, the whole [country] lives
the life of an agricultural economy. Except for a few feeble organizations of
industrialists, businessmen, teachers, clerks, and students along the rivers, the
coast, and the railroads (corresponding to their economic circumstances),
popular organizations are almost entirely self-sufficient clan, village, or
handicraft organizations. In places such as Mongolia, Xinjiang, Qinghai,
Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Guangxi there is not, to this
day, so much as an inch of railroad. There is not in the whole country a
political party that can claim a genuine membership of 300 thousand. In the
whole country, there is not a single newspaper with sales of 200-300 thousand. There is no periodical with total sales of 20-30 thousand. And yet
China as a whole has a population of 400 million and an area of more than 30
million square li. Now, under such social and economic conditions, who
would be able to rule if not the warlords? This is the second reason why now,
and in the near future, China will necessarily continue to be in the realm of
the warlords.

On the basis of internal and external political and economic conditions, we
may conclude that China, at present and in the immediate future, will necessarily remain under the reactionary domination of the warlords. This period
will be the period when the foreign powers and the warlords collude in order
to carry out evil deeds, a period when extremely reactionary and confused
politics will necessarily prevail. But if politics becomes more reactionary and
more confused, the result will necessarily be to call forth revolutionary ideas
among the citizens of the whole country,¹⁴ and the organizational capacity of
the citizens will likewise increase day by day. On the one hand, it will in the
end prove impossible for the north to unite the various southwestern provinces;¹⁵ although there will unavoidably be a few small warlords, [the southwest] will remain to the end a refuge of the revolutionary elements. During
this period, the democratic factions will daily become more numerous and
their organization will daily become stronger. The result will be the victory
of the democratic faction over the warlord faction, so that only during this

We know only that the present is an era of confusion, and certainly not an era
of peace and unification, in which politics can only grow more reactionary and
confused. But this [situation] is the source of peace and unification, it is the
mother of revolution, it is the magic potion of democracy and independence.
Everyone must be aware of this.

--- Notes

1. Zhang Shaozeng (1880-1928), a graduate of the Japanese Military Academy who
had served in various military and political offices before and after the Revolution of
1911, was premier of the government in Beijing at the time Mao wrote this article. In the
autumn of 1921, he had suggested the calling of a National Conference to discuss and
settle the affairs of the country.

2. This is the first reference in Mao's known writings to Guomindang-Communist
cooperation. As discussed above in the Introduction to this volume, the Chinese Communist Party had adopted in 1921 an extremely sectarian line excluding all relations with
other parties. Under pressure from the Comintern, the Chinese Communist Party had
endorsed a "democratic united front" with the Guomindang at its Second Congress in June
1922. In August 1922, at the Hangzhou Plenum, the Comintern representative confronted
his Chinese comrades with an explicit written order from Moscow to take the further step
of joining the Guomindang as individuals, thereby establishing the so-called "bloc
within." Mao had not attended either the Second Congress or the Hangzhou meeting, but
(as shown by the materials translated above) he was directly involved in the events leading
up to the February 7, 1923, massacre of railroad workers. This development convinced
many skeptics that the young Chinese Communist Party was too weak to face the warlords in
isolation, and therefore needed to secure the support of the Guomindang. It is not known
whether Mao had already joined the Guomindang by the time he wrote this article, but he had
done so by June 25, 1923, when he signed the letter of that date translated below.
ocratic faction consisted of the Progressive Party. The Progressive Party having

3. The Jinbudang or Progressive Party was, in fact, a rather conservative party founded by
Liang Qichao with the support of Yuan Shikai in May 1913. Mao's perception may have been
colored by the fact that Li Dazhao, one of the two founding fathers of the Chinese Communist
Party, had worked within it for a time in 1916. Li Dazhao (1889-1927), zi Shouchang, a native
of Hebei, had studied in Japan. In 1918, he became head of the Beijing University library, and
in this capacity provided employment for Mao as a library assistant during Mao's first visit to
Beijing in the winter of 1918-1919. As early as 1918, Li had published an article, "The
Victory of Bolshevism," and he went on to play a leading role both in establishing the Chinese
Communist Party and in forging the alliance between it and the Guomindang.

4. A faction made up largely of politicians and journalists, which obtained a modest
share of the seats in the warlord-dominated parliament elected in 1918. Li Dazhao had
also joined the Research clique when it was founded in 1916, though he broke with it at
the end of that year.

5. Regarding Hu Shi, see above, the "Report on the Affairs of the New People's
Study Society," December, 1920.

6. Huang Yanpei (1878-1965), subsequently a leading figure in the "third force"
between the Communists and the Nationalists of the 1930s and 1940s, was a partisan of
American-style vocational education.

7. Nie Yuntai (1880-1953), known as C. C. Nien, was a grandson of the prominent
nineteenth-century statesman Zeng Guofan. A successful industrialist, he played a leading role in the Shanghai business community, becoming president of the Chamber of
Commerce in 1920.

8. Mu Xiangyue (1876-1942), zi Ouchu, Western name H. Y. Moh, was a native of
Shanghai. After taking a B.S. in agriculture and an M.S. in the economics of the textile
industry in America, he founded the United Association of Chinese Cotton Mills in
1915. In 1920 he organized the Chinese Cotton Goods Exchange in Shanghai, of which
he was president until 1926.

9. The Zhili clique, one of the three major warlord groupings, had its main power
base in the area around Beijing, though it controlled a number of other provinces. It was
headed at this time by Cao Kun (1862-1938), zi Zhongshan, a native of Tianjin and a
graduate of the Tianjin Military Academy. Two months later, in June 1923, Cao carried
out a coup d'état with the object of seizing the presidency for himself. For Mao's
reaction to this event, see below, the article dated July 11, 1923, "The Beijing Coup
d'État and the Merchants."

10. The Fengtian clique, another major warlord grouping, headed by Zhang Zuolin,
was based in the northeast. The area it controlled had been much reduced as a result of the
First Zhili-Fengtian War of 1922. On Zhang, see below, the relevant note to the article of
July 1, 1923, "Hunan under the Provincial Constitution."

11. The Anhui clique, the third major warlord grouping, headed by Duan Qirui, had seen
its power base reduced as a result of the Anhui-Zhili war of 1920 to only a few coastal
provinces, including in 1923 Shandong to the immediate south of the capital. On Duan, see
above, the relevant note to Mao's letter of December 1, 1920, to Xiao Xudong and others.


12. The naval conference of 1921-1922, which brought together eight Western powers
and Japan, and also dealt with the position of the powers in China and their relations with
the Chinese.


13. A notorious outlaw of the period.

14. The idea that extremes engender one another, and in particular that oppression
leads to revolt, or to revolution, is extremely characteristic of Mao's philosophy. See, for
example, in Volume I, pp. 378-89, his article of 1919, "The Great Union of the Popular
Masses," which declares in the concluding paragraph: "Our Chinese people possesses
great inherent capacities! The more profound the oppression, the more powerful its reaction..
وو

15. The Guangxi clique, in particular, was frequently at war with the central government, first in Beijing and then after 1927 in Nanjing, during the 1920s and 1930s.
period can an independent and democratic government be fully established in
China.