Cai He-sen And The Weekly Guide

In the study of the history of the early diffusion of Marxism in China, the history of early struggle of Chinese Communist Party, especially the history of the development of news industry under its leadership, the history of the relation between the Communist International and Chinese revolution, the history of the first cooperation between Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, there is an important figure and an important periodical that we should never neglect and must study thoroughly. This important person is Cai He-sen(1895—1931), who is one of the most prominent early leaders of CPC and an acknowledged remarkable theorist and propagandist. The important periodical is the weekly newspaper Guide (1922. 9—1927.7), which is the first political organ run by the CPC. It is supported by the Communist International and aims to guide Chinese national revolution.Cai He-sen is a pioneer among those Chinese overseas students in France who accepted Marxism and the way of the October Revolution. As a returning Marxism theorist from abroad, he participated in the preparation of the creation of Guide and became its first chief editor. He is deeply associated with Guide in many ways: he is the major founder, the first chief editor, the second most important contributor of articles and the first commentator; on the other hand, Guide offered him a good platform and opportunity to fully display his capability in Marxism theory and propaganda. As the first chief editor, Cai He-sen played a part in working out the tenet and policy of Guide, moreover, he paid much attention to the organization of articles and the publication and circulation of the periodical. Therefore, he is one of the founders with significant influence.Following Cai He-sen, Peng Shu-zhi and Qu Qiu-bai became the second and third chief editor accordingly. Among the three chief editors, Cai He-sen stayed on the position for the longest time —for 2 years and 8 months; he edited most periodicals—116 volues; he is the most influential one, for example, speaking of guide, people immediately referred to him. Compared with other organs published by the Central Committee of CPC, such as the quarterly magazine New youth and the monthly periodical Pioneer, Guide is characterized by " the direction organ of CPC's policies", "the guide line of public opinion" and by its vivid comments on current affairs, timeliness, and so on.. Guide, New Youth, and Pioneer together with other periodicals established the strong discourse system of the CPC's theoretical and political propaganda.Based on Guide, Cai He-sen actively spread Marxism, mainly historical materialistic view. He employed basic principles of Marxism into the analysis of the character of modern Chinese society,the character, tasks, objects and motive power of Chinese revolution and the study of military struggles and the United Front led by the proletariate. He actively spread the creed of anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic revolution worked out by the second Party Congress. He made great contribution in the field of the probation into the theory of New Democratic Revolution and making Marxism and Leninism as the Party's theoretical weapon in various struggles—that is, to make Marxism Chinalized.Taking Guide as a platform, Cai He-sen guided the political struggles of his time duly and correctly. Because of the limitation of the length of paper, only one example is offered here. After the Armed Commercial Forces Incident, Cai He-sen brought some influential theorist of CPC together to comment on the incident on Guide. The Armed Commercial Forces Incident in 1924 is a serious incident resulting from a series of deteriorating conflicts between the Revolutionary Government in Guangzhou and the local commercial groups. On behalf of the CPC, by means of Marxism theory, Cai He-sen thoroughly analyzed the causes, character, effects of the incident and the solution to solve it, which to a large degree affected Sun Yat-sen's policy toward the settlement of the incident. In fact, Cai He-sen's ideas stood for the CPC's highest level in thought at that time.Because Guide formulated its propaganda tenet and edition guideline and firmly stuck to them, it differed greatly from other party organs and other ordinary media in style, which made it earn quite extensive social influence. The Communist International, the Soviet Russian government, the Central Committee of CPC and common readers gave it full affirmation and warm praise. The imperialist powers and the Chinese warlord government resented it strongly and destroyed it madly. Although Sun Yat-sen and his Kuomintang admired its efficacy of propaganda, they disliked its cool-and-independent-criticism principle. The weekly paper Struggle run by Hushi and the nationalists such as Zeng Qi disagreed with the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist creed it advocated, so there was a long-standing debate between them. All the vast social influences highlight the close relation between Cai He-sen and Guide, that is to say, all the merits and "faults" are closely linked with him.One of the reasons for Guide to have extensive influence is that it had gathered much experience of running a party organ since Cai He-sen acted as the first editor. The experience mainly are as follows: it started a good tradition—the party organ run by the Party and statesman; it fostered a good way—attaching theory to practice in the propaganda of party organ; it invented a good working method—sticking to the mass line; it developed a fighting style—the party organ being sharp in tone. Meanwhile, with Cai He-sen as the chief editor, Guide also had some defects, for example, its comments on current affairs seemed to be too subjective, its articles were hard tounderstand sometimes, its criticism were rather extreme, and so on. These defects affected the result of propaganda and are lessons to remember.