Page:Earl Browder - Civil War in Nationalist China (1927).pdf/12

 the end of January, the Mechanics Union put forward a claim to control the railroad shops and terminals, demanding that the members of the railway workers' union (an industrial organization) should give up these positions to the members of the Mechanics Union. Upon the refusal of the railway union to accept this demand, the Mechanics Union sent its armed troops to the railroad terminal to take possession of it. They were supported by a company of soldiers from the troops of General Li Chi-sen. The Railway Workers Union defended itself. The peasants self-defense corps of the surrounding district also came to their assistance to the number of several thousand. A pitched battle took place in which the railroad workers assisted by the peasants came out victorious.

We also found the same struggle going on inside of every mass organization. This was particularly true of the army. Within the army there was established at the end of 1925, a political department for the purpose of educating the soldiers in the principles of the Kuomintang, and also for carrying on mass propaganda among the population of the new territories being occupied by the nationalist armies. The workers in this political department had in the course of their work developed into quite a solid left wing, against the compromising and reactionary policies of the right wing. It was this department which arranged great mass demonstrations for us at the Whampoo Political-Military Academy. It was quite evident to us that these demonstrations, at which the soldiers and cadets sang the International and shouted such slogans as "Long Live the World Revolution," were not at all to the taste of the staff officers of the army present in Canton. During our presence in Canton, however, these higher officers merely smiled and smiled and spoke fair words. But five weeks after our departure from Canton they arrested most of the workers of the political department and blew out their brains.

After leaving Canton we plunged into an atmosphere of even more active civil war. For us this atmosphere crystallized itself around the name of Kanchow, the third