28 Bolsheviks - Rise and Fall

Rise and Fall

With support from their mentor Pavel Mif, president of Sun Yat-sen University and envoy of Comintern at that time, they returned to China after graduating. This provoked a struggle with Li Lisan and his allies, who controlled the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Dissidents against Li inside the Party also objected to their return, but, in the 4th Plenary Meeting of the Communist Party's 6th National Congress, and with the presence and direct support of Pavel Mif, Wang Ming and his group won a landslide victory. Wang was elected to the Communist Party's politburo and Bo Gu, while Zhang Wentian took up other, equally important, positions. As a result, the conflict between the Central Committee and Mao Zedong's fledgling Chinese Soviet Republic began once again. Although Wang Ming returned to Moscow after a short stay in Shanghai, Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian both took the position of General Secretary of Central Committee of the Party in turn, and led the Chinese revolution in a radical manner.

Following Chiang Kai-shek's 1927 blood purge, the CCP went deep underground in Shanghai and other cities. By the early 1930s, even that was unsafe and leaders began to converge at Mao Zedong's Jiangxi Soviet. Among the first to arrive, and to begin dismantling Mao's power, was Zhou Enlai. In 1933, when Bo Gu arrived, the job was mostly finished.

After a series of successful defenses against Nationalist Army attacks, Chiang's German advisers switched tactics and began building concentric circles of fortified positions closer and closer to the communist base. This forced the party to embark in the famous Long March. Shortly after the march began, party leaders held an enlarged congress to determine the direction and leadership of the revolution. At the Zunyi Conference in 1935, the 28 Bolsheviks were defeated by Mao Zedong and his allies, primarily due to the backing of Zhou Enlai and Zhu De.

Bo Gu stood by with the Comintern military advisor Otto Braun (Li De), while Zhang and Wang Jiaxiang, General Commissar of the Red Army, and Yang Shangkun, Commissar of the Third Field Army of Red Army at that time, defected to Mao. This led to the disintegration of the 28 Bolsheviks. Wang Ming was exiled to Moscow where he later died. Zhang was demoted to the field of ideological research in Yan'an, and later appointed Deputy Foreign Minister after 1949. He died during the Cultural Revolution after forming a "counterrevolutionary group" with Peng Dehuai. Bo Gu died in an air crash in the 1940s when he returned to Yan'an.