28 Bolsheviks - Disputes

Disputes

The standard Western interpretation is that the group neglected the contribution of peasants who contributed to the success of Mao's success Mobile Warfare. That, and as protégés of Pavel Mif, they thought they were destined to take charge of the Chinese revolution.

Thomas Kampen's Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and the Evolution of the Chinese Communist Leadership argues that they were only a coherent group in Moscow, opposed to both Kuomintang and Trotskyist influences among Chinese students. It's also claimed that they did return to China at various times, but failed to form an effective faction. Additionally, there are questions as to whether the entire group gained notoriety only by association with the theories of the most prominent member, Wang Ming. Frederick Litten writes agreeing with Kampen that there was no such faction in the Jiangxi Soviet and goes further to question whether the group acted in any kind of coordinated way at all. Litten's view is that the idea of a 'Leftist' versus 'Maoist' dichotomy at this time is a later invention retrospectively applied.

The 28 Bolsheviks became pawns in the power struggle between their mentor, Pavel Mif, and the Communist Party of China. The group's members were relatively innocent in the ways of revolution, despite their collective power. Although its members had different fates, as a group the 28 Bolsheviks were destined to fail. Today in China, "the 28 Bolsheviks" is synonymous with dogmatism.