Zou Lu¹ and the Revolution
(December 5, 1925)

Zou Lu says, "We comrades of the Guomindang should be conscious of the
fact that we certainly cannot negate all the old comrades just because some
people say that they are not revolutionary. If our comrades had not fallen
down repeatedly and got up again, how could there be a republic? If it had
not been for all the campaigns to punish Yuan Shikai and to protect the
constitution, to punish the rebels and carry out the Northern Expedition,
history would not be what it is today. As for the exploit of which the Communists are so proud, the burning of the Merchants' Corps, they had to rely on
Yang and Liu.² To defeat Yang and Liu they had to rely on Xu Chongzhi³

This text appeared in Zhengzhi zhoubao No. 1, December 5, 1925. Our source is Mao
Zedong ji, Vol. 1, p. 125.
1. Zou Lu (1885-1954), zi Haibin, was a native of Guangdong who played an active
role in Sun Yatsen's efforts to establish a territorial base in Guangdong in the years from
1917 to 1923. In January 1924, at the First Congress of the Guomindang, he was elected
to the Standing Committee of the Central Executive Committee. He was strongly opposed
to radicalism and to cooperation with the Communist Party. Zou Lu was one of the
instigators of the Western Hills Conference of November 1925, and at the Second
Guomindang Congress in January 1926 it was resolved that he be removed from the party.
He retired from political life in 1928, and in 1932 became chancellor of National Sun
Yatsen University in Guangzhou, which he had founded in 1924.
2. The Merchants' Corps, or Merchants' Association Volunteer Corps, had been organized in May 1924 by the Guangzhou merchants as an instrument to resist the financial
demands and military pressure of Sun Yatsen's government. When, in the summer and
autumn of 1924, they bought large numbers of rifles, Sun decided to take action. Despite
strong support for the merchants by the British consul, who threatened military intervention if force were used against them, the Merchants' Corps was surrounded and disarmed
on October 15, 1924, by armies including a contingent of Huangpu cadets. At the same
time, a large part of Guangzhou's commercial quarter was destroyed by fire. Yang Ximin
and Liu Zhenhuan, who had links with foreign interests, were not in sympathy with this
move and played no part in it.
3. Xu Chongzhi (1887-1965), zi Ruwei, a native of Guangdong, was a graduate of the
Japanese Military Academy. He joined the Guomindang in 1912, and from then on was
closely associated with Sun Yatsen. In 1924, he became head of the Military Affairs
Department of the Guomindang, and in May 1925, he played a decisive role in suppressing the revolt of Yang Ximin and Liu Zhenhua (see note to text of December 4, 1925, for
details). In July 1925, he became minister of war in the new national government. Following the assassination of Liao Zhongkai, he became a member of a three-man body to deal
with the emergency, together with Wang Jingwei and Chiang Kaishek. Soon, however, he

and Liang Hongkai.⁴ And in the present campaign against Xu and Liang, who is
there, once again, but the old comrades?"⁵ Very good, Mr. Zou! Then we invite
you to make revolution! Indeed there is not a single person who dares undertake
to negate the old revolutionary comrades! We must realize it is not enough just
to have "the republic" and "history." Revolution is still what we need today, and
what we will need in the future. I think it would be better to use fewer examples
of those old comrades like Yang and Liu and old comrades like Xu and Liang.

displayed a lack of firmness in dealing with Chen Jiongming, and on September 21, he
was expelled from Guangzhou on Chiang Kaishek's orders. Suggestions of complicity in
Liao's assassination appear to be unfounded. The Soviet military adviser Cherepanov, who
writes at some length of these events, is harshly critical of Xu's rightist and compromising
tendencies, but does not even hint at any involvement in Liao's death. See A.I
Cherepanov, Zapiski voennogo sovetnika v Kitae (Notes of a Military Adviser in China),
Moscow: Izdateol'stvo "Nauka," 1964, pp. 242-250, and the corresponding passage in the
abridged translation of this and the second volume of Cherepanov's memoirs, A.I.
Cherepanov, As Military Adviser in China, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1982, pp. 15762.
4. On Liang, see above, the relevant note to the announcement of December 4, 1925.
5. This is an accurate quotation from Zou's article "Gao Fu Mu" (To Fu Mu), written
in 1925, replying to criticisms, in the Guangzhou Minguo ribao, of Guangdong University
(later Sun Yatsen University), which he had founded in 1924. For the full text, see Zou Lu
quanji (Complete Works of Zou Lu), Volume 9, pp. 69-75.