Twentieth Century Chronicle

Page 142

Through this investigation of cities and villages, foreign friends who had previously harbored doubts about the Labour Party's ideology began to revise their views on the land revolution. They did not agree with the political idea of ​​eliminating the landlord class, believing that eliminating landlords in the countryside would undoubtedly destroy the rural economy. This was because landlords were not only the owners of the land, but also the organizers of the rural economy and the maintainers of social order. Eliminating landlords would be tantamount to destroying the economy and social order, and they did not believe that peasants could manage themselves well.

However, during this investigation, they realized that while peasants did have many problems, this did not negate their ability to manage themselves. At least, the peasant associations organized by the peasants managed the villages much more fairly than the landlords did. Furthermore, the peasant associations were clearly progressive in eliminating feudal superstition, usury, and clan oppression.

The clan issues exhibited in Chinese villages are not unique to Chinese rural culture; clan cultures also exist in Vietnam and Korea, and India's caste system is even more brutal. This kind of mutual support in rural areas is essentially based on the oppression of smaller clans and within the clan itself. Therefore, most villages in China are populated by people of the same surname, and it is very difficult for people of different surnames to gain a foothold. The clan chief's oppression of weaker branches within the clan is not much different from his oppression of smaller clans. The punishment of drowning adulterous couples is decided by the clan chief, who is no different from a local tyrant.

Expecting a clan chief to uphold justice for you is as absurd as expecting an emperor to be a saint. Even an emperor with millions of subjects wouldn't ease his oppression of the common people; how could a local tyrant, controlling only a small area, let you escape his grasp? Without you, he'd have one less person to enslave. Don't even mention landlords in this era; even a security guard in later times would prioritize using power on delivery drivers if he had a little. This is the alienation of people by power.

The peasant associations' denunciation of clans was essentially a rebellion by peasants at the bottom of society against the landlord class. To advocate that the existence of clans protected clan members on this issue is as absurd as the Manchu Qing dynasty, which created the Hui-Han conflict, claiming they protected Han people during the Tongzhi Hui Rebellion. Therefore, the delegation considered the rural organizations they observed on the Jianghan Plain, with peasant associations as the backbone of village management, to be a significant step forward.

Chapter 507 Martial Arts Exchange

Lin Xinyi and his delegation returned to Wuhan on September 18. At that time, the first Import and Export Commodities Fair held in Wuhan was in full swing, and the entire Hankou area was more crowded than usual.

After Britain completed the First Industrial Revolution, a large number of novel industrial products emerged. The old forms of commercial trade could no longer meet the needs of commodity sales in the industrial age. Therefore, in 1851, Britain held the first Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, firstly to promote Britain's national power, and secondly to promote its own industrial products.

This type of trade fair, invented by capitalism, was quickly imitated by other countries and began to become a form of competition for industrialized nations to showcase their national strength. However, apart from the United States, no other regions outside of Europe have seen similar large-scale trade fairs, because the lack of industry, technology, and infrastructure makes it difficult for these regions to accommodate the influx of tens of thousands of people in a short period of time.

The reason why Wuhan was able to host this import and export commodity fair is that in the past six or seven years of construction, Wuhan has initially become an industrial city. Tap water has reached 80% of the city's area, electricity supply covers 90% of the city's area, and public transportation covers 70% of the city's area.

The influx of hundreds of thousands of people into the city in a short period of time will not cause the city of Wuhan to collapse. This is the material basis for Wuhan to be able to host large-scale trade fairs. Other places in China cannot bear the burden of such a large influx of people in a short period of time, unless you treat these people as refugees.

After spending a few days in Wuhan attending the trade fair, Japanese businessman Naokichi Kaneko couldn't help but remark to his companions, "I originally thought Wuhan was just hosting a small-scale domestic goods exhibition. I never expected them to organize such a large-scale event and manage it so well. If there weren't so many Chinese people here, I would have thought this was a large-scale goods exhibition in Europe. If they continue to maintain this level and successfully conclude this trade fair, then we will have to admit that Japanese commerce has fallen behind once again."

It wasn't just ordinary Japanese businessmen who held this view; Morrison also came to a similar conclusion while touring the newly opened No. 1 Department Store in Hankou. Department stores were a new business model that emerged after the rise of capitalism. The opening of Galeries Lafayette in Paris in 1893 transformed department stores into a symbol of capitalist culture, no longer just shops selling goods.

Why did department stores become a symbol of capitalist culture? Because their emergence represented the end of the scarcity economy of the agricultural era. It was no longer about selling whatever we had, but about selling what you needed. The great development of productivity in the capitalist era finally made consumption one of people's basic needs.

Agricultural countries don't need department stores because they lack both the production capacity and the market size. Only industrialized countries need this business model, which arises from their own production needs and the consumption demands of their citizens.

Although the Hankou No. 1 Department Store wasn't luxuriously decorated, Morrison still considered it an extremely extravagant company, especially for a predominantly agricultural country. This was because the department store used electricity entirely for lighting and featured elevators, separate restrooms, and washrooms. Even in England, there wasn't such a novel commercial building; it was a product of an industrial nation, not an agricultural one.

Standing on the rooftop amusement park of the department store and looking out over the nearby Hankou Park, Morrison felt that this place was at least better than Shanghai. This wasn't just about the level of prosperity; in fact, this city surpassed Shanghai in every aspect. After all, Shanghai was an oriental paradise built by a group of Europeans for themselves, while Wuhan was a home built by the Chinese people. Therefore, Wuhan was more suitable for living than Shanghai. There were no gangsters or opium traffickers here, and not so many murders.

Morrison's report to the Beijing legation had changed significantly from his initial statement. He no longer considered Wuhan a political force that could be manipulated by the great powers. In a letter to Minister Sadowy, he emphasized that "the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee is more like a government than the State Council in Beijing. The Labour Party will not control China for long. We should not be considering the possibility of the Labour Party taking over China, but rather how to deal with the situation after the Labour Party takes over China..."

I still believe that General Yuan Shikai's rule over China would be the best outcome for both China and Britain, but I do not believe he could defeat the Labour Party led by Tian Junyi. I have had contact with the top leaders of the Labour Party, and apart from Lin Feng and Wu Luzhen in India, these men possess outstanding talent, far surpassing not only those under General Yuan Shikai's command but also those of far superior personal integrity. They are not like traditional Chinese people, but rather like devout believers, willing to sacrifice everything for their faith—something the Beiyang clique led by General Yuan Shikai could not achieve.

For German industry, the Wuhan Import and Export Fair represents its greatest achievement since entering China. As a late-developing industrial nation, Germany left Europe much later than established colonial empires like Britain and France. Therefore, while German industry and commerce developed rapidly globally, the colonial system hindered them from encountering obstacles beyond mere commercial competition.

In the Americas and the Mediterranean, Germany could exert some influence due to their proximity to Europe, but in the East, its power was somewhat limited. Even though Germany forcibly leased the Jiaozhou Bay area and incorporated Shandong into its sphere of influence, it couldn't focus its efforts on developing port cities like Britain did. Instead, it had to first build Qingdao into a fortified stronghold. And the target of this defense wasn't China, but other powers, especially Britain.

In other words, the security costs Germany incurred in developing industry and commerce in the Far East were far higher than those of established empires like Britain and France. This made Germany's industrial and commercial expansion in the East incomparable to that of established empires like Britain and France. German merchants even had to venture deep into the Chinese interior to promote their goods.

This Wuhan Import and Export Commodities Fair surpassed the efforts of German industry and commerce in China over the past two decades. At this fair, merchants from all over China actively learned about German industrial products and various tools and machinery manufactured according to German industrial standards. In addition, a large number of overseas Chinese merchants who operate businesses in Southeast Asia also participated in the fair and placed orders for a considerable number of German goods.

Compared to the orders this trade fair brings to German businesses, the German business community values ​​the opportunities and influence it provides for German industry even more. Germany's share of global exports is second only to the UK, with a quarter of its exports coming from the UK, France, and Russia. This means that Germany's trade in Europe has almost peaked, and to further expand its exports, it must trade with regions outside Europe, particularly the East, where German goods account for a relatively small proportion.

Between 1902 and 1907, trade between China and Germany grew from less than 100 million marks to over 600 million marks, with 90% of that trade originating from the area controlled by Wuhan. This was an astonishing growth for German industry and commerce, while China at that time was far from reaching its trade ceiling. Considering the infrastructure development in the Hubei and Hunan regions, if other parts of China wanted to emulate the industrialization of the Wuhan area, the current Sino-German trade volume would need to increase at least 100 times, requiring at least six times the current size of Germany to meet this demand.

Because of the rapid increase in Sino-German trade, German business and industry began to ease the belligerent sentiment at home, believing that provoking a war in Europe at this time would be a crime. Under such sentiment, German business and industry were even unwilling to have a conflict with Britain and France in the Mediterranean region, whereas just a few years ago they believed that Germany should have a place in North Africa.

However, while the Germans were trying to ease the atmosphere of war in Europe, Britain and France were actively preparing for war. The French began to promote the three-year conscription system in an attempt to extend the service period of soldiers, while the British began to reform the army. The Boer War and the Sino-British conflict in Tibet made the British realize that the British army seemed to be no longer suitable for modern warfare.

Unlike the great powers who used the Wuhan Import and Export Commodities Fair to reassess Wuhan's strength, the citizens of Wuhan enjoyed the fair with a sense of happiness. In their eyes, the fair didn't have many additional meanings; they saw many novelties and found that they actually had money in their pockets to buy some new things, which made them happy.

In 1902, the monthly wage of an ordinary laborer in Hankou was only three silver dollars. By 1907, the monthly salary of an ordinary worker in Hankou had reached nine dollars, which was higher than the monthly salary of an ordinary shop assistant (seven dollars) and the monthly salary of an ordinary policeman (eight dollars). The image of workers had changed from that of dock laborers and they had truly become the backbone of the city.

What does a monthly salary of 9 yuan mean? For a single worker, it means that his monthly food expenses will not exceed one-third of his income, meaning that the worker has a considerable amount of spare money for other consumption. Watches, pens, and bicycles, which were once the luxury items for the wealthy, are no longer luxuries for some high-income skilled workers, but rather relatively expensive daily necessities.

Of course, Wuhan's industrial development also led to a rapid drop in the prices of industrial goods. For example, in 1903, a bicycle cost more than 150 silver dollars and had to be imported as a whole; it was simply unavailable in smaller towns and required orders to be placed and then shipped to Shanghai. After May 1907, bicycles produced in Wuhan had dropped to 80 yuan, and many bicycle repair shops appeared on the streets, making it much more convenient to buy and use bicycles.

Industry and infrastructure development have widened the gap between urban and rural life. Urban residents have begun to experience the convenience of city life, while in the past, the poor in the city actually lived worse than the self-cultivating farmers in the countryside. At least the self-cultivating farmers did not have to worry about food and clothing and could eat fresh vegetables.

However, the emergence of urban public services such as water, electricity, coal, and roads has enabled even the poorest urban residents to enjoy a level of convenience that even rural landlords could hardly imagine. For the first time, the working class has moved from a theoretical concept into reality. At least the workers browsing various goods at the Wuhan Commodity Fair now realize that they are neither farmers nor merchants, but members of the working class.

Chapter 508 Urban-Rural Issues

As soon as Lin Hsin-yi returned to Wuhan, Tien Chun-yi put aside his work to visit him. He wanted to hear Lin Hsin-yi's views on the current governance of the Labour Party. This was also the reason why Lin Hsin-yi requested to join the inspection team. He believed that problems could not be identified without seeing them in person.

Tian Junyi believed that Lin Xinyi could see something different because he trusted Lin Xinyi more than he trusted himself. After all, the revolutionary path that the Labor Party was now taking was based on Lin Xinyi's judgment of the Chinese revolution.

If Lin Xinyi had not thoroughly analyzed the various possibilities of the Chinese revolution for them that day, even if they had formed a revolutionary party after returning to China, they would never have been able to establish an advanced revolutionary organization like the Workers' Party, nor would they have been able to mobilize workers to promote mass revolution. Naturally, the current Wuhan regime, where revolutionary forces hold a dominant position, would not have emerged.

After completing his investigation, Lin Xinyi also had a lot to say. He felt that the work ability and revolutionary consciousness of the Labor Party members, such as Tian Junyi, were beyond question in turning his ideas into reality. Even if he were to do these tasks, he could not possibly do them better than Tian Junyi and the others. After all, the revolutionaries like Tian Junyi had a greater sense of urgency and mission to change the status quo of China. His advantage was only that he had the soul of a time traveler. If they were in the same era, it would be impossible for him to sit down and discuss any issues with these people.

Therefore, when Tian Junyi came to ask him, he thought for a long time but still ignored the details and said to the other party: "The investigation time this time is still too short. If I could have three months or half a year to live in a certain place for a period of time, I might be able to see some deeper issues. Now I can only talk about my own feelings. It can't be considered a very rigorous investigation. I can only talk about the surface things."

Upon hearing this, Tian Jun immediately said, "In carrying out armed struggle, we have a very clear goal: to overthrow the Qing Dynasty. As long as we work towards this goal, even if we make a mistake, it will be a minor one, as long as we don't go back to the wrong path."

However, we have no experience in economic development or building a people's government, and we don't even have a clear goal. Simply put, we can't find a clear path. Almost all of the Labour Party's current theories are based on your thinking, so I think you understand where that path lies better than most of us.

So I think you should say what you think. Even if there are problems, we can correct them. As long as we don't deviate from the general direction, it's not a problem.

Seeing that Tian Junyi was willing to accept all criticism, Lin Xinyi went along with it and said, "Since you put it that way, let's discuss it together. I think the first issue that deserves our attention is the urban-rural divide..."

Tian Junyi initially thought that Lin Xinyi's urban-rural divide referred to political and cultural differences. However, as the revolution progressed, the Workers' Party had developed a basic understanding of urban and rural work: rural work was far more difficult and demanding on cadres. In the city, a good cadre could manage hundreds or even thousands of young men in a factory, but in the countryside, forget about mobilizing the masses to discuss revolutionary theory; the personal conflicts arising from land redistribution alone filled the cadres sent to the countryside with resentment.

Some cadres were full of confidence before going to the countryside, believing that as long as they drove away the landlords and distributed the land, the peasants would unite around the Party like the workers, doing whatever the Party asked them to do, and thus becoming part of the revolutionary forces. But the reality was not so. The poor peasants, who dared not utter a sound in front of the landlords, began to pick and choose when it came to distributing the land. They either tried to curry favor with the cadres to get themselves a good share, or they used their large families to force smaller households in the village to exchange land with them.

Some cadres sent to the countryside with low political awareness believed that this was a manifestation of the peasants' ignorance, stupidity, and selfishness. Therefore, they argued that the peasants should not be given any political rights, but rather that the Party committee should send activists to manage the peasant associations, thereby realizing the Party's leadership over the countryside.

Some of the cadres sent to the countryside with higher political awareness wrote to the Central Committee after comparing the enthusiasm of factory workers and peasants for the revolution. They expressed their views: "The workers' enthusiasm for the revolution lies in the fact that even after they have gained the power to manage the factory, they are still members of the factory collective. Therefore, the interests of the collective are still higher than the interests of individuals. Infringing on the interests of the collective is equivalent to infringing on the interests of other workers, and thus they are subject to the constraints of the collective."

Rural peasants lacked a concept of collectivism; they only possessed personal property. Before land redistribution, their aim was to retain their own land while encroaching on others' land, ultimately becoming a landlord class detached from labor. Land redistribution did not change this mindset. They received land from landlords, but this did not mean they abandoned their desire to become landlords themselves. Their neighbors remained competitors, not collaborators.

Therefore, expecting land redistribution to turn peasants into revolutionaries is unrealistic; it can only garner their support for the Party. To transform peasants into revolutionaries, their land must be confiscated, turning them into a labor collective like the workers, and then using the collective to reform their selfish and self-serving mindset…

However, it is clear that Lin Xinyi was not talking about this difference: "...In the process of industrialization, the living standards of cities and villages will rapidly diverge, especially in areas of rapid industrialization. The gap between urban and rural living standards may even lead to situations where the living standards of small landlords in the countryside are not as good as those of poor urban residents."

This disparity stems from the industrial advantage over agricultural productivity. According to a survey of the income of workers in Wuhan and farmers in the Jianghan Plain, the annual income of an average worker is roughly equivalent to that of 200 mu (approximately 33 acres) of medium-sized land on the plain. However, the average arable land per person in the Jianghan Plain is only about 10 mu (approximately 1.6 acres). This means that a farmer would need 200 mu (approximately 33 acres) of land to earn the same annual income as an average worker, which is clearly unrealistic in contemporary China.

As productivity further increases, industry's advantage over agriculture will expand, meaning farmers will need more arable land to match worker output. However, with a continuously growing population, per capita arable land will only decrease, not increase, implying that the income gap between farmers and workers will not only not narrow but will widen further.

When this happens, agricultural labor will shift to industrial labor, because being a worker is clearly more profitable than farming. However, industrialization requires capital and markets, meaning that no matter how rapid industrialization is, it cannot completely absorb the surplus labor from agriculture, especially in a populous country like China, where the industrial base is weak and more than 90% of the population are farmers. If just one in ten farmers comes to the city to work as a worker, the city will explode.

Japan is currently facing this problem, and Japanese capitalists are addressing it in two ways: first, by compressing workers' wages to artificially reduce the income gap between workers and farmers, thereby preventing the transfer of surplus rural labor to cities; and second, by sending large numbers of young women abroad to work in the sex industry, which both reduces the rural birth rate and generates foreign exchange for the country.

Lin Xinyi looked at Tian Junyi, whose expression was serious, and then changed the subject, asking, "So what should China do in the future? How should it deal with the urban-rural divide brought about by industrialization? This divide will inevitably tear apart the current worker-peasant alliance, and capitalism will not let this opportunity pass."

They would unite with the peasants to launch an attack on the proletarian regime, portraying the disparity caused by the inequality in industrial and agricultural productivity as exploitation of the peasantry by the working class, thereby seizing the ruling position of the working class, pocketing the wealth created by the working class, and then making the peasants grateful to them.

Tian Junyi had not considered this issue at all. For him, the biggest enemy of the current revolution was the landlord class and the Qing Dynasty. The bourgeoisie was the destined enemy of the proletariat. However, in an agricultural society like China where the proletariat had not yet developed, very few people could clearly explain what capitalism was. What everyone was certain of was the evil of the Qing Dynasty and the landlord class, the evil of imperialism, and they really had no feeling about the evil of capitalism.

However, Tian Junyi did not think that Lin Xinyi was exaggerating, because he had indeed seen the suffering of the lower classes in Japan during his studies abroad. After the First Sino-Japanese War, Chinese students who arrived in Japan with high hopes for the Meiji Restoration soon discovered that the so-called Meiji Restoration only achieved military strength, and the so-called national wealth was a joke.

The lives of ordinary Japanese people are far worse than those of ordinary Chinese people. If ordinary Chinese people can survive by lying down, then Japan is a country where lying down means starvation. Naturally, this kind of Japan greatly disappoints Chinese students. In addition, the Japanese people's post-war discrimination against Chinese people has led to a widespread anti-Japanese sentiment among Chinese students studying in Japan.

After briefly recalling his experiences in Japan, Tian Junyi earnestly asked Lin Xinyi, "So how can we prevent the widening gap between urban and rural areas and maintain the worker-peasant alliance?"

After thinking for a long time, Lin Xinyi sighed and said, "To be honest, I haven't thought of any solution either, but I think the worst solution is to cut the benefits of the working class to subsidize the peasants. This not only violates the socialist principle of distribution according to work, but also undermines the workers' willingness to uphold the proletarian regime."

I believe that a socialist state ruled by the proletariat is superior to a feudal dynasty ruled by the landlord class, but it is not superior to a capitalist state ruled by the bourgeoisie. What is superior to capitalism is a communist society with public ownership of the means of production and distribution according to need, not a socialist state.

Even when socialist countries fail and retreat, they will not revert to capitalism, but rather to a more backward feudal dynasty era. This is because the red elites will not establish a free-market capitalist society; they will only rule the country according to bloodline theory. Therefore, although socialist countries can establish proletarian regimes, they can hardly achieve genuine public ownership of the means of production. As long as the state as an organizational form exists, public ownership of the means of production will inevitably transform into state ownership, and the bureaucratic class and the bourgeoisie can seize the means of production from the proletariat by stealing from the state.

Therefore, the primary issue for socialist countries is ensuring the dictatorship of the proletariat. The existence of the worker-peasant alliance is to maintain, not weaken, the dictatorship of the proletariat. The essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat lies in the proletariat's awareness as rulers; a proletariat that relinquishes its ruling power cannot maintain proletarian regime…

Chapter 509 The Morality of the Proletariat

Lin Xinyi looked at Tian Junyi and made a final summary of the urban-rural differences: "Therefore, after the establishment of the proletarian regime, our primary issue is how to maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than maintaining the worker-peasant alliance. The significance of the worker-peasant alliance lies in establishing and maintaining the dictatorship of the proletariat. Once the worker-peasant alliance damages and hinders the dictatorship of the proletariat, then the worker-peasant alliance should be adjusted."

Why did the worker-peasant alliance hinder the dictatorship of the proletariat after the establishment of a proletarian regime? Because, strictly speaking, peasants did not belong to a true class; landlords were also included in the peasantry. Landless peasants, self-cultivating peasants, rich peasants, and landlords were all peasants. Although their individual interests differed, their worldviews were almost identical.

Strictly speaking, the worker-peasant alliance refers to the alliance established by the working class and peasants willing to accept socialist transformation; the broad worker-peasant alliance, on the other hand, is an alliance of workers and peasants resisting the oppression of capital and landlords. In the early stages of the revolution before the establishment of proletarian power, the broad worker-peasant alliance was stable because everyone shared a common enemy.

However, after the establishment of the proletarian regime, and after the revolution achieved certain results and capital and landlords were defeated, a division emerged between workers and peasants. The urban-rural divide brought about by industrialization amplified this division. Workers hoped to bring the entire country into a public ownership economy and eliminate the differences between workers and peasants, but this needed to be done gradually, since industrialization could not be completed overnight.

However, the interests of farmers differ from those of workers. In rural areas closer to industrial cities, farmers see the benefits of industrialization and want to leave agriculture to become urban residents. In rural areas far from industrial cities, farmers who have acquired their own land hope to continue the self-sufficient small-scale farming economy of the past, solve their own food and clothing problems, or further accumulate land to become new landlords, that is, to get rich.

Therefore, for the working class, which has seized proletarian power, the worker-peasant alliance in the new era should be adjusted in a timely manner, and the broad peasantry should no longer be considered as an ally. Those peasants who cannot accept socialist transformation are, in effect, the objects of the proletariat's rule during this period, and they are also among the objects of the dictatorship of the proletariat. However, after accepting socialist transformation, they can still return to the proletariat.

What I am worried about now is not that the policies implemented by the Labour Party are harmful to the peasantry, but that the Labour Party has lost its class stance, failed to adjust its understanding in time during the period of rapid revolutionary development, and compromised for the sake of a formal worker-peasant alliance, thus weakening the power of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Tian Junyi's feelings were conflicted. After accepting the revolutionary path of establishing a worker-peasant alliance to fight against feudalism, capitalism, and imperialism, he always regarded maintaining the worker-peasant alliance as the primary task of the Workers' Party. And from the perspective of practical activities, this path was indeed feasible. The Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee was able to grow rapidly to its current state precisely because it was built on the foundation of a stable worker-peasant alliance.

Although many problems arose in rural areas during the land reform process, he still believed that these problems could be overcome. Just as Lin Xinyi had described before, the rapid increase in urban-rural disparities brought about by industrialization could also transform the backwardness of rural areas. After all, the living standards of some villages in the Jianghan Plain were vastly different from the past after they were connected to electricity.

However, he genuinely hadn't considered that after the revolution succeeded, a portion of the peasantry would be treated as targets of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This seemed like a betrayal of the worker-peasant alliance. Nevertheless, Lin Xinyi's analysis was clear and logical, and it closely matched the work reports submitted by the cadres who had previously gone to the countryside.

After the landlords in the village were overthrown, many peasants did indeed begin to distance themselves from the peasant association and live a quiet life. Even some activists in the land reform embezzled peasant association funds or used the association's power to oppress their neighbors. The old landlords had fallen but were not yet dead; new landlords had already begun to rise.

After pondering for a long time, Tian Junyi finally suppressed his inner weakness and asked Lin Xinyi with a serious expression, "Then what methods should we use to transform the countryside so that the farmers can integrate into socialism?"

Lin Xinyi thought for a moment and then replied: "Actually, there is nothing wrong with the policies that the Labor Party is implementing in the countryside. Popularizing education is the most fundamental way to solve the gap between workers and peasants. Both industry and industrialized agriculture require knowledge. After these rural children receive education, they will naturally become the reserve force of the working class in ten to twenty years."

For rural farmers today, socialist transformation is nothing more than starting from three aspects: politics, economy, and culture. Politically, it is necessary to overthrow the political power, clan power, religious power, and husband's power represented by the landlord class. Economically, it is necessary to strengthen the status of the collective economy and further strengthen the commodity exchange between industry and agriculture. Culturally, it is necessary to eliminate religious superstition and establish an atheistic materialist concept.

Of course, the most important point is that the Party must first understand the significance of the worker-peasant alliance at different periods, and understand that the Party represents the interests of the proletariat, not the interests of the worker-peasant alliance. If the Party itself cannot understand the difference between the interests of workers and peasants, and tries to compromise on the issue of the worker-peasant alliance, how can it expect the peasants to understand what socialism is?

Although Lin Xinyi also discussed the relationship between party members and the masses, and the relationship between the party and intellectuals, the discussion that left the deepest impression on Tian Junyi was the one about urban-rural issues. He thus realized that the Workers' Party could no longer simply consider the issue of seizing national power, but also the problems the party would face after doing so.

Lin Xinyi emphasized the urban-rural issue in his speech to prevent the Workers' Party from failing to shift its mindset from that of a revolutionary party to that of a ruling party in a timely manner. He had never understood why Lenin called Stalin a weak liberal and viewed the Kronstadt mutiny and the surplus grain requisition system as stains on the Soviet regime.

But after living in this era for a period of time, he finally gained a new understanding: as long as these things are considered within the context of upholding the dictatorship of the proletariat, then everything makes sense.

After the establishment of the Soviet regime, maintaining its existence became the primary task of the proletariat. Compared to the lives of millions of proletarians, suppressing the sailors' mutiny and implementing the surplus grain requisition system were minor matters.

The proletariat of this era has no right to be weak, because imperialism will really use machine guns to annihilate the proletariat. Only the proletarian regime can protect the proletariat. Anyone or anything that threatens the existence of the proletarian regime will inevitably be crushed by the proletariat. It is meaningless to talk about personal morality in such matters.

The reason why capitalism began to talk about morality and humanity a hundred years later was because the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany and successfully sparked a wave of world revolutions, destroying the global colonial system established by imperialism.

Before the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany, racism was the mainstream value of imperialism. The extermination of Native Americans by the Spanish, the extermination of Native Americans by the Americans, the extermination of Kurds and Armenians by the Turks, and the extermination of Jews by Germany were not crimes for imperialists, but honors.

Therefore, the proletariat considered the Kronstadt mutiny and the requisitioning of surplus grain as stains on the Soviet regime, and the Katyn Forest massacre and the execution of Nicholas II and his family as stains on the Soviet Union, thus portraying the Soviet Union as an evil empire, seemingly even worse than Nazi Germany. However, from a capitalist perspective, both the white-supremacist 19th-century America and the era of European global colonization were seen as golden ages of capitalism; they never considered the massacre of people of color and the proletariat to be a crime.

As long as the proletariat does not abandon this nihilistic sense of morality that does not conform to its own class interests, it is impossible for the proletariat to defeat capitalism and win the final victory. For example, when the landlord class in China attacked communism as communal ownership of wives and children, the landlord class had already been living a life of sharing the wealth and wives and daughters of the poor. They were just talking about what they did to intimidate the proletariat, but the landlords were never ashamed of it.

If Tian Junyi and others could not break free from this sense of personal morality, the Workers' Party would inevitably experience internal divisions, thus creating opportunities for reactionary forces. Although the "April 12th" counter-revolutionary coup was a joint effort by Chiang Kai-shek and other right-wing members of the Kuomintang and foreign powers, it was actually the various revolutionary armies that carried out the coup. The reason these revolutionary armies turned to counter-revolution was because the worker-peasant alliance had encountered problems. After the old regime was overthrown, some peasants were won over by the landlord class, thus allowing the counter-revolutionary forces to overwhelm the revolutionary forces.

It was precisely this love for and high sense of responsibility towards the proletariat that led Lenin to criticize Stalin as a weak liberal, because Stalin lacked the willpower to firmly uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Another revolutionary mentor in the East used these words to admonish his comrades: "A revolution is not a dinner party, not writing an essay, not painting or embroidering. It cannot be so elegant, so leisurely, so refined, so gentle, kind, respectful, frugal, and modest. A revolution is an insurrection, a violent act by which one class overthrows another."

What Lin Xinyi can do now is to make Tian Junyi understand this principle as soon as possible. In this cruel era, hypocritical personal morality requires the proletariat to pay the price with countless lives. Upholding the dictatorship of the proletariat and establishing a communist society after overthrowing the rule of the landlord class and the bourgeoisie will inevitably be a better world than the present one—this is the morality of the proletariat.

The day after this conversation, Lin Xinyi was invited to participate in talks between the Chinese Workers' Party and the Far Eastern Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Party, as a representative of the Asian Democratic Revolutionary Alliance. These talks, which had actually lasted three days, focused on cooperation between the two parties and discussions on how to end the war, but had reached a stalemate.

According to Yang Dusheng, who chaired the talks between the two parties, while the Russian Social Democratic Party's Far Eastern Committee hoped to gain the support of the Workers' Party, they held different views on the post-war situation in the Far East. To be more precise, the Russian Social Democratic Party's Far Eastern Committee wanted to restore the Far East to the situation before 1900, but demanded the preservation of territorial sovereignty over areas such as the Chinese Eastern Railway, Amur Province, Primorsky Province, and Sakhalin Island.

Chapter 510 Lin Feng's Question

The delegation sent by the Far Eastern Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Party consisted of nearly twenty people. They came not only to talk to the Workers' Party about ending the war, but also to discuss postwar cooperation.

As Babushkin, who strongly advocated cooperation with the Workers' Party, emphasized at the Far Eastern Committee meeting in Chita, "The Chita Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Soviet does not have the power to overthrow the Tsarist government on its own. Only when the Russian people rise up against the Tsarist government will this autocratic regime collapse."

Our primary task at present is not to discuss the rights and wrongs of the history between our two countries with the Chinese, but to ensure that the Chita Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Soviet can continue to exist until the Russian people rise up against the Tsarist government.

I am not afraid to fight against the Tsarist government, but can the Chita Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Soviet really withstand the Tsarist army's attack after becoming hostile to the Chinese? I think this is a real question, and we must face reality.

Although Babushkin's proposals received the support of the majority of the Social Democratic Party's Far Eastern Committee, most representatives within the Far Eastern Social Democratic Party and the Chita Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Soviet were wary of the Chinese.

Although the Chita Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Soviet incorporated some representatives of Far Eastern peoples, the real decision-making power remained in the hands of the Slavs. The Slavs of the Far East were very clear about their origins; they were immigrants who came with the Cossacks after the Cossacks conquered the people of this land.

Although the majority of representatives in the Chita Soviet were exiled intellectuals, railway workers, and soldiers due to inconvenient transportation, and the number of peasant representatives was relatively small, this did not mean that peasants had no influence on the Chita Soviet. After all, the majority of the population in the Far East was engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry, and peasants were the main body of Far Eastern society.

However, the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway gave urban workers and soldiers a concentrated advantage over the scattered countryside, preventing the majority of the population—the peasants—from gaining control over the Chita Soviet. This did not mean the Soviet could disregard the peasants' opinions. Within the territory of the Chita Republic, Slavic immigrants from Europe and Russia had become the majority, meaning these people were unlikely to acknowledge that their land did not belong to them.

Because of the history of invasion by Tsarist Russia's former neighbors, the Slavs in the Far East feared that the Chinese and Japanese, who had defeated the Tsarist army, would treat them in the same way and drive them from their land. Therefore, although the Social Democratic Party's Far Eastern Committee believed in establishing a cooperative relationship with the Chinese Workers' Party, it was also constrained by the fears of the Far Eastern Slavs and argued that Russia's historical presence in the Far East could not be completely denied.

Babushkin knew this would inevitably provoke Chinese discontent. When the Verkhovna Udinsk Soviet was being formed, Chinese generals like Cai E made their stance clear: they acknowledged the labor of Russian immigrants but did not recognize the legitimacy of Tsarist Russia's occupation of Far Eastern lands. This was the root cause of the rapid merger of the Verkhovna Udinsk Soviet with the Chita insurgents after the Chita Uprising, forming the Chita Republic. Through this merger, they freed themselves from Chinese control of the Verkhovna Udinsk Soviet, thus gaining a position for equal negotiations with the Workers' Party.

However, the relationship between the Chinese and the Social Democratic Party was merely one of cooperation. The Social Democratic Party's foundation in the Far East was the Russian workers, soldiers, and peasants. If it could not gain the approval of the latter, no matter how much the Chinese supported them, the Social Democratic Party would not be able to control the revolutionary situation in the Far East.

However, the current deadlock in negotiations is causing Babushkin great anxiety. The Chita Republic is like an infant, which could perish at the slightest sign of a cold. But for the Russian proletariat, this infant is of great significance because it is the first time that the Russian proletariat has seized power. Even though it is far from Europe, it has brought a light in the darkness to the Russian proletariat. Every day that this regime exists will ignite the Russian proletariat's passion for fighting against the Tsarist government.

Babushkin still hoped to reach an agreement with the Labor Party as soon as possible. With the support of the Labor Party, the Republic of Chita would no longer have to worry about the Chinese and Japanese armies helping the Tsar to encircle and suppress it. Even if these two countries did not send troops, just by supporting the Tsar's army in Manchuria to attack the Republic of Chita, the Republic of Chita would not be able to stop them.

When Babushkin entered the conference room that day, he found a young man in the room. Although the man looked very young, he naturally became the center of attention among the Chinese people in the room. Although he was somewhat surprised by the age of this newly emerged important figure in the Labor Party, he didn't pay much attention to it, because he already knew that the Labor Party itself was founded by a group of young people, and most of the party's main leaders were under thirty, with many in their early twenties.

What surprised him more than the age of the main leaders of the Labour Party was the party's organizational maturity and high degree of theoretical unity. Even in France and Germany, where the working class is most mature, there is no such mature workers' party organization that has established a unified theory to guide the party's actions.

Strictly speaking, the situation of the Workers' Party is more like what Comrade Lenin envisioned: "a unified organization, a centralized party, a vanguard of the class," where "revolutionary theory is born in the minds of revolutionary intellectuals, and then guides the revolutionary practice of the vanguard composed of activists of the working class."

Judging from the development of the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee, the practice of the Workers' Party undoubtedly proved that Lenin's vanguard theory was correct. In an Eastern country with almost no working class and little capitalism, a vanguard composed solely of a group of intellectuals and a small number of workers ultimately united the country's laborers to overthrow the feudal dynasty that colluded with imperialism and began rapid industrialization.

Even those most skeptical of the class nature of the Chinese Workers' Party would dispel their doubts upon arriving in Wuhan, because the city truly embodied the assertion that the proletariat could represent advanced productive forces in scientific socialism. Although Wuhan still retained many capitalist elements, the city was indeed eliminating feudal relations that hindered the development of productive forces.

This is why, although the negotiations between the two sides have reached a stalemate, the Social Democratic Party representatives do not want the negotiations to break down, because they recognize that the Labour Party represents the interests of the proletariat. Although the political ideas of the two sides do not completely overlap, they are at least much more consistent than those of the Tsarist government.

Babushkin and others learned from Yang Dusheng, the Labor Party's chief negotiator, that the young man in the meeting room today was Lin Feng. However, he was not representing the Labor Party at the meeting; he also had another identity today: Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Asian Democratic Revolutionary Alliance.

Of the three Russian representatives present, Kurnatovsky was more concerned with the workers' movement and military strength in Wuhan, while Babushkin and Balansky seriously studied the organization and foreign relations of the Workers' Party. Therefore, the latter two knew that Lin Feng was the main provider of theoretical research on the Workers' Party, and that the Asian Democratic Revolutionary Alliance was an Asian Democratic Revolutionary Alliance based on mutual assistance between China and India in democratic revolution.

Baransky, who placed the greatest emphasis on the Asian Democratic Revolutionary Alliance, spoke to Babushkin, who was engrossed in studying the organization and theory of the Labor Party, about the alliance's significance to Wuhan: "This alliance not only brought about reconciliation between two of Asia's most populous nations, but also cleared away the main obstacles to Asian revolution. In the past, European powers' colonial actions in Asia, apart from their own naval forces, mainly relied on India's manpower and resources. Once India's support for European colonial actions was lost, it meant that Europe would have to mobilize its own manpower and resources for its colonial actions in Asia."

Judging from the struggle between China and Britain for Tibet, even the British Empire, after losing the support of the Indians, found it difficult to force a nascent China to back down. The Tsarist government's defeat in this Far East war further proved that it would be difficult for European powers to replicate their pre-19th-century colonial successes in Asia, where the conquest of millions of people with just two or three warships and a few thousand troops would never happen again.

Wuhan was attempting to establish itself as a leader of Asian revolution and rebuild its pre-19th-century international standing. If the Asian Democratic Revolutionary Alliance could succeed in other Asian countries besides China and India, then Asian nations, after expelling imperialists, would inevitably unite around China to counter the European powers…