Mao Tse-tung on Guerrilla Warfare
meantime the left-wing government in Wuhan had broken up. The Communists walked out; the Soviet advisers packed their bags and started for home.
During this period, the Communists were having their own troubles, and these were serious. The movement was literally on the verge of extinction. Those who managed to escape Chiang's secret police had fled to the south and assembled at Ching Kang Shan, a rugged area in the Fukien-Kiangsi borderlands. One of the first to reach this haven was the agrarian agitator from Hunan. As various groups drifted in to the mountain stronghold, Mao and Chu Teh (who had arrived in April, 1928) began to mold an army. Several local bandit chieftains were induced to join the Communists, whose operations gradually became more extensive. Principally these activities were of a propaganda nature. District soviets were established; landlords were dispossessed; wealthy merchants were "asked" to make patriotic contributions. Gradually, the territory under Red control expanded, and from a temporarily secure base area, operations commenced against provincial troops who were supposed to suppress the Reds.
In the early summer of 1930, an ominous directive was received at Ching Kang Shan from the Central Committee of the Party, then dominated by Li Li-san. This directive required the Communist armies to take the offensive against cities held by the Nationalists. The campaigns that followed were not entirely successful and culminated in a serious Communist defeat at Changsha in September. On the thirteenth of that month, the single most vital decision
