Wang Ming - Wang's Thought and Works

Wang's Thought and Works

There are great controversies on the appraisal of Wang, his works and thoughts.

According to the orthodox appraisal of Wang of the CCP, the label given by Mao to Wang as a representative of dogmatism, subjectivism and sectarianism hits the nail on the head. Wang adhered to the principles he learned from textbooks on Marxist theory. For example, during the struggle with Li Lisan, in his pamphlet Two Routes, Wang showed more leftism than Li by declaring the proletariat and low-level bourgeoisie as the only revolutionists in China, and claiming that there was no third party or middle camp in the revolution and that all capitalists and upper-level bourgeoisie should be overthrown. Wang advocated for a revolution of extremism in several parts of China and then spreading to the whole country, despite that the CCP was much weaker than the KMT at that time. Wang insisted that urban revolution was preferable to rural revolution, despite the fact that China was actually a largely agricultural country. Furthermore, Wang advocated unconditional obedience to the Comintern and the Soviet Union, without regard for Chinese realities and keeping the independence of the CCP, which (he claimed) would be harmful to Chinese national interest and pride.

Furthermore, Wang was a theorist and lecturer rather than an activist, an idealist rather than a realist, and an intellectual rather than a politician. The CCP would never win the revolution through speeches and theories. When Wang won power, his immaturity and recklessness, with little experience of struggling under tough conditions, was uncovered. He seldom realized that his power was built on sand. Compared with Mao, who was a veteran survivor of the cruel power struggle inside and outside CCP, Wang was destined to fall once he lost support from Moscow.

However, there is no doubt that Wang was a good student of Marxism and a practitioner of revolution. The best proof of Wang's talent and deep understanding of Marxism and Leninism was the large number of articles and speeches he produced before his thirties – which most Chinese Marxists did not equal in output in their whole lives. His talent in theory and propaganda won him fame and power, and he contributed to the Chinese revolution to some extent. Chief among his contributions are his theories on the Chinese revolution and the United Front, about which he wrote a pamphlet Two Routes and gave a lecture for the Comintern in 1935. Moreover, Wang did provide in his memoirs valuable information about the early stages of the CCP, especially in his book 50 Years of the CCP.

In particular, unlike Mao, who was a pragmatist and politician who learned all his tactics from the Chinese history rather than from the Marxism and Leninism classics, Wang was a zealot of Marxism and Leninism. He might have longed for power, but his ultimate goal was the realization of communism.