To the Left or to the Right?
(December 13, 1925)

For half a year now, one group of people has been arguing that the left is no
good, and that the right is no good either, and have put forward as an alternative
a kind of centrist view. Rejecting both the right-wing faction and the left-wing
faction, they tell the world that it is they themselves who occupy the central
position. This kind of thing does not appear much in Guangdong but is quite
common in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area. Because in Guangdong, the left is
Guangzhou and the right is Hong Kong. Those who take a stand beneath the
Guangzhou banner invariably are opposed to Hong Kong, and those who stand
beneath the Hong Kong banner are invariably opposed to Guangzhou. The counterrevolutionary faction, led by Chen Jiongming and made up of military men,
politicians, compradors, local bullies, and bad gentry, stands under the Hong
Kong banner, while the workers, peasants, soldiers, students, merchants, and
revolutionary popular masses of all kinds, led by the left wing of the
Guomindang, stand beneath the Guangzhou banner. Thus the two sides bombard
each other with their cannons. There can be no centrist faction in the midst of
this bombardment. If there is, it has to cover up its head and face and hide under
the banner of one of the factions, speak softly and tread lightly. Anyone who
wanted to stand between Guangzhou and Hong Kong would have to proclaim
that "Hong Kong is no good, and Guangzhou is no good either," in which case
the cannons both of Hong Kong and of Guangzhou would certainly be aimed
directly at him. At present there are as yet no big guns bombarding each other in
the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area, so the argument that "both sides are no good" is very
popular there. On May 30 of this year,¹ the cannons of one side boomed out in
the Nanjing area. Fortunately the other side did not have any cannons, only some
Zedong ji, Vol. 1, pp. 127-29.
mouth of the Wusong River and set up cannons at Nantang, Beitang, and at
Shizilin (as was done at Humen), and over the gun emplacements had raised the
banner "Bombard Imperialism."² At this point, Shanghai would have unfortunately fallen into the same "chaotic situation" as Guangzhou, would have set up
a defense headquarters, would have asked men like Mr. Wang Maogong³ to take
command, and would have patrolled the streets every day in their military vehicles. Newspapers like the China Times⁴ would certainly be closed, and possibly
even the Awakened Lion Weekly⁵ could not have avoided the same fate. Freedom
of speech would be allowed only to those in the majority, while those in the
minority would have their free speech taken away from them, exactly the opposite of the situation prevailing previously. At this point, the centrist faction, just
as in the case of Guangzhou, would not be able to make propaganda openly.
Then what? Of course, there is still Beijing. But Beijing cannot be counted on for
long, for it all depends on the stability of the position of the chief executive,
Duan Qirui. As long as Duan's position is secure, there's no problem. Not only
can the Guomindang Comrades Club hang its signboard on high, the Fourth
Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee can also hold its meetings
there. It would be freer than Zhangjiakou. But even as I say this, I am still today
a little confused. Why is it that the Fourth Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee couldn't be held in Zhangjiakou? Isn't it under the direct control
of the Duan Qirui government? If Chief Executive Duan Qirui wasn't there just a minute even if Chief Executive Duan was there, it would be hard to

--- Notes
Chinese demonstrators on Nanjing Road in Shanghai. Ten demonstrators were killed and
more than 50 injured. The background to the incident was a series of labor conflicts over
low wages and poor working conditions. On May 15, 1925, a clash broke out between
Chinese workers and supervisors at a Japanese cotton mill, in which one worker was killed
and others wounded. Widespread protests followed, and a massive demonstration was
organized for May 30. On May 31, following the incident, a general strike and a boycott
of foreign goods was declared, resulting in a complete shutdown of Shanghai business.
Sympathy strikes occurred in some 24 other Chinese cities.
fists that couldn't return the salvo. Since a chaotic situation of direct confrontation had not yet come about (the brief labor strike didn't amount to anything), it
was still possible to promote openly the argument that "both sides are no good"
and to "remain upright between the two, preserving freedom in the realm." But
let us assume a hypothetical situation in which those popular masses on Nanjing
Road had not only their fists but also cannons; that they were under the leadership of Wang Jingwei and Chiang Kaishek; that they demolished that police
station with one blow and then went on to occupy the Municipal Council, capturing all those "red-headed types"; that they had then immediately sealed off the
Bogue,” was the main passage leading into the Pearl River south of Guangzhou. The forts
on the shore there had played an important role in confrontations between the Chinese and
the British from the time of the Opium War. The Wusong River joins the Huangpu River
in Shanghai, and flows together with it into the Yangzi. Nantang, Beitang, and Shizilin are
strategic points on the shore immediately north of the city.

3. Wang Maogong (1891-1961), Guomindang military man.
time it was an organ of the Research Clique. Mao, in his Report on Propaganda of January
1926 translated below, accuses it of "supporting the interests of the bureaucrats and big
landlords."
opinion of this paper, too, see his Report on Propaganda of January 1926.


--- Notes

This text appeared in Zhengzhi zhoubao, No. 2, December 13, 1925. Our source is Mao

1. On May 30, 1925, British police of the International Settlement fired on unarmed

2. Humen, literally "Tiger's Mouth," known in the West as "Bocca Tigris" or "The

4. The Shishi xinbao (commonly translated China Times) was founded in 1908. At this

5. The Xingshi zhoubao, or Awakened Lion, was the organ of the Étatistes. For Mao's