Twentieth Century Chronicle

Page 247

Although the Asian Joint Fleet is composed of warships from five countries—Japan, China, the Pacific Federation, the Korean Empire, and the Republic of Chita—its main force actually consists of the Pacific Federation Fleet and the Japanese Navy. Each of these two fleets has two first-class cruisers and two second-class cruisers as their main warships, while the other countries have almost all served as auxiliary ships.

In name, the Joint Chiefs of Staff mobilizes the entire joint fleet, but in reality, if the naval representatives of each country do not reach a consensus, they can only mobilize the fleet dispatched by their own country. And if they want to exercise the right of self-defense in the name of the alliance, they must first obtain authorization from the alliance meeting.

While this power structure greatly weakened the combat effectiveness of the Asian Joint Fleet, it also significantly reduced the war risks to the alliance caused by the departure of certain individuals. The Joint Staff Council was not of a high rank; German Colonel Ludwig Sachseh served as Chief of Staff, Lin Xinyi as First Deputy Chief of Staff, and Colonel Lin Baoyi as Second Deputy Chief of Staff, making it a staff council at the colonel level.

However, the Combined Fleet's area of ​​operation is quite extensive. Japanese ports facing the Pacific Ocean—Hakodate, Yokosuka, Sasebo, Futenma, Keelung, Kaohsiung, and Zamboanga; Chinese ports—Qingdao and Yulin; and Pacific Federation ports—Apia—are all authorized to be open to the Combined Fleet. In other words, the Combined Fleet's patrol area extends north to the Japanese archipelago, east to the continental shelf, west to the central Pacific Ocean, and south to Southeast Asia.

In the past, there was no clear jurisdiction over this area, and the navies of various countries vied for spheres of influence. Although Britain was undoubtedly superior, it could not regard this sea area as its own backyard. Japan, Russia, Germany, the United States, and France all had their own exclusive spheres of influence. After the First Sino-Japanese War, China lost all maritime jurisdiction and only had a few warships left.

However, with the Russian Navy's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, the German East Asia Fleet joining the Combined Fleet, and the British Navy retreating to the Strait of Malacca, the US Navy was unable to counter the combined Japanese and German navies in the region. Therefore, maritime control of the area naturally fell into the hands of the Asian alliance. The French, US, and Dutch navies were simply unable to confront the alliance in East Asia, nor could they unite due to a lack of shared political and economic interests.

Thus, for the first time, a unified maritime power emerged in the Western Pacific region, which had previously been contested by various powers. Although disagreements still existed within the Asian Alliance, the alliance's shared external interests outweighed its internal differences, leading this new maritime cooperation organization to begin to stabilize.

The Japanese Navy greatly expanded its sphere of influence under the guise of the Asian Alliance, which is why Hayashi Nobuyoshi was promoted ahead of schedule once again. The Navy needed Hayashi Nobuyoshi to continue to promote the construction of the Combined Fleet and realize the Navy's southward strategy.

At this point, the navy's southward expansion strategy was much clearer than its previous empty promises. The navy intended to use the Strait of Malacca as a boundary with Britain, with the British controlling the Indian Ocean, while the area east of the Strait of Malacca and north of Australia should belong to the Japanese navy. Based on this, Japan could then move eastward to compete with the United States for control of the Pacific Ocean.

The high command of the Japanese Navy still dared not regard the British Royal Navy as an enemy. They believed that the Indian Ocean was a core interest that the Royal Navy could not give up. Therefore, as long as the Japanese Navy did not interfere in the Indian Ocean, Britain and Japan could coexist peacefully. Their goal was still to compete with the United States for the Pacific Ocean.

Hayashi Shin-yi did not correct the ideas of these naval high-ranking officers. Although he believed that with the decline of Britain, it was actually much safer to compete with the British for the Indian Ocean than to compete with the United States for the Pacific Ocean, confrontation with the United States would further strengthen Japan's need for Asian integration, because Japan's individual strength could not deal with the war potential of a continental industrial power like the United States.

In early December, Lin Xinyi went to Qingdao. He needed to settle down there before bringing Mu Zi and her son to Qingdao. He didn't go directly to Qingdao to take up his post, but instead went to Wuhan first to attend the opening ceremony of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge. After three years of construction, or nearly five years if the preliminary work is included, with a total investment of over US$25 million, the first bridge across the Yangtze River was finally completed.

Tian Junyi was overjoyed to see Lin Xinyi. Pointing to the distant bridge at the Hankou dock, he said to Lin Xinyi, "You once said that building the Yangtze River Bridge would connect the three towns of Wuhan, making Wuhan the revolutionary heart of China. I thought it would take decades to complete, but I never expected that we would achieve it in just ten years. Next year, the Yuehan Railway will be fully operational, and then we can travel directly by train from Vladivostok in the far north to Guangzhou in the far south. China's inland transportation landscape will be completely transformed. Even if there are any threats at sea, we won't be constantly attacked."

Lin Xinyi looked at the bridge over the Yangtze River and felt it was magnificent. Although it was not outstanding compared to the Yangtze River Bridge of later generations, it appeared grand and spectacular on the Yangtze River in this era. This was because there were not many tall buildings on both sides of the Yangtze River. Even though Hankou and Hanyang had some modern features, the tallest buildings did not exceed the height of the Yangtze River Bridge.

He remarked with considerable emotion, "One Yangtze River Bridge is not enough. The Yangtze River stretches for thousands of miles, and at least a dozen bridges are needed to facilitate commercial exchanges between the two regions. One north-south artery is also insufficient; a north-south railway should be built near the coastal areas to ensure the economic and national defense of the coastal regions."

The leaders of the Workers' Party, including Tian Junyi, greatly agreed with Lin Xinyi's statement. By this time, they no longer doubted that Lin Xinyi's plan for the development of Chinese industry was an overly optimistic vision. As the industrial system in Wuhan gradually took shape, they realized that industrialization itself was the greatest driving force for social change in China.

Those party members who previously prioritized agriculture are now increasingly abandoning their principles and shifting towards an industry-first approach. Last year's major floods had a significant impact on industry and agriculture, but the rapid recovery of industrial areas and the inability of agricultural areas to recover demonstrate that industrialized cities are the best weapon against natural disasters.

Lin Xinyi's trip to Wuhan was clearly not to attend the opening ceremony of a Yangtze River bridge; he was actually there to learn about the discussions and resolutions of the Workers' International's Eastern Conference.

The Eastern Conference held by the Workers' International in Wuhan was, in general, a success. At the conference, workers' representatives from various countries acknowledged the legitimacy of the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements of the Asian peoples and also agreed that the proletariat of each country should not serve the imperialism of its own nation.

However, what puzzled Tian Junyi was that he asked Lin Xinyi, "The representatives of the Workers' International all claimed to oppose colonialism and imperialism at the conference, but they showed a position opposite to their own on the issue of the Moroccan crisis."

French proletarian representatives argued that France's actions in Morocco were aimed at maintaining order, not suppressing the Moroccan revolution, and accused Germany of lying about protecting its citizens and of using the situation to gain territory from Morocco.

Representatives of the German proletariat also defended the German government's actions, arguing that the proletariat's opposition to imperialism could not be a pretext for denying their motherland. This was truly perplexing. Wasn't the motherland they loved oppressing other nations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas? If they supported this motherland, wouldn't they be supporting their own country's oppression of the people in its colonies? I believe only the Russian Bolsheviks' position is correct: the proletariat should transform imperialist wars of aggression into domestic revolutionary wars—this is true patriotism…”

Lin Xinyi could understand why members of the Labour Party like Tian Junyi opposed European patriotism. It wasn't that they truly opposed patriotism, but rather that, from a Chinese perspective, European patriotism was essentially imperialism that oppressed China, which was why they found it difficult to accept. If China were an independent and sovereign country, most members of the Labour Party would still believe that patriotism should be paramount.

End of this chapter

Chapter 777

According to Tian Junyi and many members of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party, the only social democratic labor party in Europe that truly understood the environment of the Chinese revolution was the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, and only a few individuals and the Bolsheviks led by Lenin were truly willing to put the interests of the proletariat above the interests of the nation and the country.

Therefore, the Labour Party naturally tended to align itself with the Bolsheviks led by Lenin, rather than with the parliamentary struggle theories of the British Labour Party, as the Japanese Social Democratic Party did. During his travels in Europe, Kotoku Shusui did establish relatively deep connections with the British Labour Party. After all, Anglo-Japanese relations were in a honeymoon period at the time, and the British Labour Party, as a newly established party, was happy to make contact with representatives of the Japanese working class.

Kotoku Shusui was quite fond of Fabianism, but he believed that it was a political ideology that could only be realized in a democratic country like Britain. Under the Japanese imperial system, it would be quite difficult to realize Fabianism, so he was not entirely opposed to violent revolution.

However, the Workers' Party, led by Tian Junyi, seized local power through armed uprisings and grew step by step through struggles against the feudal landlord class, the comprador class, and imperialism. Therefore, the Workers' Party Central Committee naturally did not believe in any social reformism. The situation of the Russian Revolution was similar to that of China, with an autocratic and centralized government. The Russian proletariat could not implement any social changes before overthrowing this autocratic group, so it could only choose violent revolution.

Of course, only the Bolsheviks led by Lenin were truly clear-headed about the nature of the Russian Revolution. Some reformists still dreamed that the Tsarist autocracy could emulate the Glorious Revolution in England, voluntarily relinquish its power, and then lead all the Russian people onto the path of common happiness. Therefore, the Workers' Party naturally accepted Lenin's theory of class struggle more readily, because both sides faced similar social environments: the reactionary ruling class always sought to suppress them by violence, making peaceful coexistence impossible.

The Eastern Conference of the Workers' International did not receive much attention from the social democratic parties of various European countries, so there were not many important figures attending the conference. This made Lenin and Trotsky of the Russian Social Democratic Party, Kotoku Shusui of the Japanese Social Democratic Party, and the Chinese Workers' Party, as the host, the main figures of the conference.

This conference thus supplemented the Eighth Congress held in Copenhagen, Denmark last year. One key point was the proposal to promote a movement among the masses against militarism and imperialist war, in order to counter the patriotic war propaganda promoted by imperialism; another was the decision to establish three continental bureaus under the Executive Bureau of the International Socialist Party to guide the global workers' movement.

The propaganda against militarism and imperialist war among the masses was mainly the proposition of the proletariat of Eastern countries and the Russian Bolsheviks. Due to the high patriotism and nationalism of the masses in their respective countries, the representatives of the European Social Democratic parties did not dare to propose mobilizing their own people to oppose militarism and imperialist war at last year's congress. However, for the Eastern countries and the Russian Bolsheviks, there was no such problem.

The idea of ​​establishing three continental branches under the Executive Bureau of the International Socialist Party to guide the global workers' movement was primarily the opinion of the proletarian representatives of China and Japan. Although the Copenhagen Conference last year proposed unifying the divided branches of the International, the resolution did not propose a method for unification, thus rendering it meaningless.

The Executive Bureau of the International Social Democratic Party was merely a liaison body, responsible for maintaining contact with social parties and workers' organizations in various countries, preparing for and determining the agenda of congresses, establishing archives of the Second International, and issuing declarations, proclamations, and appeals on major issues concerning the interests of the proletariat. It could not force social democratic parties in various countries to comply with its resolutions.

However, as the core of the proletarian forces in Asia, the Chinese Workers' Party has integrated progressive forces in various countries through the Asian Democratic Alliance. After the establishment of the Asian Alliance, the socialist forces in China and Japan were further strengthened. The proletariat in China and Japan needed a unified leadership organization to guide and assist the proletariat in other Asian countries. At the same time, the Asian democratic revolution also needed the support of the working class in Europe and America. Therefore, a unified leadership organization for global socialist forces was quite important.

Under these circumstances, the Labour Party naturally demanded an international organization to unify the proletarian forces of various countries and advocated establishing three bureaus in Europe, the Americas, and Asia to lead the workers' movements in these three regions. Although the proletarian forces in Europe and the Americas were much larger than those in Asia, the reality was that the Asian proletariat was actually the most organized. This was because the Asian proletariat was smaller in number and less industrialized, resulting in a less rich body of proletarian theory. When the powerful Chinese Labour Party was established, the proletariat of various countries automatically aligned themselves with the Labour Party's theories, thus minimizing major disagreements.

Although Japan's socialist theory emerged earlier than China's, it was translated from European socialist theory. Under the suppression of a powerful authoritarian government, the Japanese proletariat never succeeded in putting it into practice. Therefore, after the Workers' Party established the Wuhan regime, Japanese socialists either abandoned the theory of proletarian struggle or leaned towards the Workers' Party's theory, because the Workers' Party had succeeded in China.

India's proletariat was even more fragmented than that of China and Japan. British rule over India was a combination of colonialism and local feudal traditions, so the Indian proletariat never established its own leadership. When the British invaded Tibet, the biggest class contradiction the Chinese army faced after entering India was actually the contradiction between small farmers and landlords, followed by the contradiction between the landlord class and British capital. At that time, India did not have a complete proletariat, only seasonal workers whose main occupation was still farming.

Therefore, among the Asian Democratic Alliance, the Indian representatives were the least socialist in their views. While they acknowledged the system of public land ownership, they did not advocate for the violent expropriation of landowners' property. Most placed great importance on agriculture, viewing industry as a technological necessity for improving agriculture, rather than a genuine technological revolution to transform Indian society.

Apart from the proletarian organizations in China, Japan, and India, other countries have virtually no organized proletariat; at most, they have some national independence activists and social reformers who lack grassroots support in their own countries. Therefore, when the Asian branch of the International Socialist Party's Executive Bureau was established, the Labour Party naturally became the core force of that bureau.

However, the Bolsheviks also gained a foothold in the Asian sector because the Bolsheviks led by Lenin were in the midst of a fierce internal party struggle, and the Bolshevik forces began to concentrate in the Chita Republic, which gave the Bolsheviks support in the Asian proletarian alliance.

This support greatly strengthened the Bolsheviks within the party. Lenin's trip to the East to attend the conference was not only due to the active invitation from the Workers' Party, but he also wanted to take this opportunity to wage a decisive battle against the opposition within the party, thereby purifying the party organization.

The internal split within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was actually a consequence of the failure of the Russian Revolution. After the revolution's failure, a portion of the Social Democratic Party was terrified by the White Terror of the autocratic government. They believed that the Russian proletariat was no match for the Tsar's autocratic state apparatus and therefore tended to unite with the bourgeoisie and pursue a constitutional path.

These people were the liquidationists criticized by Lenin. They demanded the abolition of the party organization, joining the bourgeois party, taking the path of constitutionalism under the leadership of the bourgeoisie, and then gradually carrying out socialist reforms, turning socialism into a personal belief rather than a political force.

The liquidationists' capitulationist stance was even unacceptable to the Mensheviks. Although the Mensheviks advocated for alliances with bourgeois parties after the revolution's failure, they still demanded the preservation of the party organization and a legitimate seat in parliament. Consequently, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party increasingly split into two opposing groups after the revolution's failure. According to Lenin, the liquidationists had effectively become a separate party, rather than a faction within the party.

However, in the early stages of the party struggle, Lenin's faction was always at a disadvantage because some Mensheviks and Bolsheviks believed that Lenin was splitting the party, rather than the liquidationists opposing the party. After all, the liquidationists initially proposed to abolish all factions within the party, not to abolish the party itself.

However, after Stolypin staged a coup and sentenced the Social Democratic Party (SPD) delegates in the Russian Duma to hard labor, the liquidationists who advocated cooperation with Stolypin began to be abandoned by workers and grassroots party members. After Stolypin destroyed the SPD's domestic Central Committee, the abolition of the various factions within the party effectively dissolved the party organization itself. This is because the Russian SPD was initially established through the union of various socialist theoretical groups, which formed the various factions within the party. Abolishing these factions meant the party's organizational system ceased to exist.

In April 1911, at a Duma meeting, Stolypin proposed a series of laws to strengthen the Tsar's autocratic position, thus undermining the October 4 Declaration. This caused even the bourgeois liberals who hoped Russia would embark on a constitutional path to lose faith in Stolypin's reforms. Consequently, the liquidationists' influence within the Social Democratic Party suffered another blow, as the political path they proposed had become unrealizable.

Therefore, during Lenin's visit to China, preparations were underway for the Social Democratic Party's national congress to expel the liquidationists from the party. The Workers' Party provided considerable resources in this matter and facilitated a union between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Although Lenin and Plekhanov's disciples had significant differences on the party's development, they finally reached a consensus on their stance against the liquidationists.

Tian Junyi gained a great deal from observing the struggle between Lenin and the liquidationists, because Lenin persisted in the struggle for three years while being almost isolated by the entire party, and then isolated the liquidationists. The Mensheviks shifted from a conciliatory stance to a stance of expelling the liquidationists from the party, but in terms of the proportion of the party's upper echelons, the size of the liquidationists was actually no weaker than that of the Bolsheviks.

For example, Trotsky actually partially supported the liquidationists' propositions in 1910, but he abandoned them after April 1911. Although he had fierce debates with Lenin on political ideology, he did not side with the liquidationists whom Lenin opposed.

The debates between the various factions within the Russian Social Democratic Party left high-ranking Workers' Party leaders, including Tian Junyi, in awe. Tian Junyi remarked to Lin Xinyi, "The Russian comrades have taught us a good lesson. Compared to the debates between the Russian comrades, the arguments within our party are like the squabbles of village children, truly insignificant."

Lin Hsin-yi could certainly understand Tien Chun-yi's feelings. Political struggles within the party also have high-level and low-level struggles, and Lenin was clearly the highest-level player. Even just standing aside and observing, he could give the members of the Workers' Party a baptism of thought.

The reason the Russian Social Democratic Party failed to seize leadership of the Russian Revolution was not because their theories were flawed, but because the reactionary forces in Russia were too strong, and their revolutionary experience was insufficient, leading to the revolution's failure. However, the lessons learned from this failure for the Russian Bolsheviks were profound, and Lenin was the most insightful in reflecting on them. Therefore, in the next revolution, Lenin would certainly not relinquish his leadership.

He couldn't interfere with what the Workers' Party could learn from the Bolsheviks' rise, but if they learned nothing, it meant they simply couldn't understand socialism, not that they lacked intelligence. For him, Tian Junyi and others' views on Lenin were a positive sign, and that was enough.

After a close conversation with Wada Junichi and others, Lin Xinyi naturally went to visit Trotsky and Lenin as a member of the Workers' Party. Lin Xinyi's conversation with Trotsky mainly focused on the support of the Asian revolution for the Russian and European revolutions. Although they shared similar views on some issues, Lin Xinyi felt that he could hardly trust Trotsky because the latter's views seemed to be open to changing at any time.

The conversation with Lenin was much more candid. Lenin consistently focused the discussion on the development of the proletarian revolution, establishing a consensus between the Workers' Party and the Bolsheviks on the global development of socialism. On this theme, the two were essentially expressing opinions on the party's perspective, rather than purely personal views.

This conversation made Lin Xinyi feel that even if he wasn't a time traveler, he would trust Lenin after speaking with him, because while an individual's stance can easily change, an organization's stance cannot be altered so quickly. Lenin's views were mostly based on Bolshevik political ideology, rather than personal opinions, making his statements credible.

However, Lenin and Trotsky shared a view that the victory of the world proletarian revolution must first be achieved in the center of Europe. After thinking about this for a long time, Lin Xinyi still did not agree with this revolutionary mentor. "According to what you said, the victory of the socialist revolution requires two conditions: one is a highly developed social productive force, and the other is that the proletariat is mature enough to be ready for revolution."

I theoretically support your position, but in practice, I believe we cannot expect to achieve victory first in Europe, the center of capitalism, and then liberate the world. I believe that for the proletariat to liberate itself, it must first liberate all of humanity before it can achieve its own liberation.

Although socialism should theoretically be established under advanced social productive forces, the failure of capitalism began with its own weaknesses, such as in capitalist regions like China and Russia.

Therefore, the prerequisite for the victory of the European proletarian revolution should be that the colonized nations outside Europe first break free from the enslavement of international capital. Only then can isolated European capitalism be crushed by the great unity of the proletariat…

Lenin was very interested in Lin Xinyi's views. Before their conversation, he had already learned from Tian Junyi that this member of the Chinese Workers' Party had not only promoted the Chinese revolution, but also the revolution in India and Korea. Although he had not made any special contributions to socialist theory, he had a wealth of experience in specific revolutionary practices. Therefore, he earnestly asked him how to achieve revolutionary victory in non-capitalist centers.

After thinking for a long time, Lin Xinyi cautiously said, "I have two points. One is that we should promote the spread of capitalist production so that the advanced capitalist mode of production can crush the production relations in those backward regions. The other is to cultivate proletarian organizations in various regions and establish proletarian regimes before capitalist production relations are established."

Of course, such revolutionary practices will encounter many setbacks. For example, will the global spread of capitalist production enhance the power of advanced capitalist countries, thereby enabling these countries to use high welfare to buy off their own proletariat and transfer low-profit industries to underdeveloped regions, thus weakening the power of their own proletariat and undermining the unity between the proletariat of different countries?

Furthermore, although proletarian regimes in various countries were able to be established before socialism, how to ensure that these proletarian regimes would not be corrupted by capitalism, ultimately betraying their still-unawakened proletariat and transforming into corrupt bureaucratic capitalist groups…”

Lenin pondered for a long time but couldn't come up with any suggestions. He could only say to Lin Xinyi, "The two questions you raised are indeed very interesting. I need to think about them carefully before I can try to answer them..."

End of this chapter

Chapter 778

In addition to meeting with Trotsky, Lenin, and other members of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, Lin Xinyi also made a special trip to visit the Military and Political University and the Naval University, which were of greatest interest to him. By this time, the prefix "Red Army" had been changed to "Wuhan," and the two schools had grown significantly since their inception. The Military and Political University, in particular, had developed the fastest, with its student body exceeding 8000, becoming the core source of new blood for the Wuhan Workers' Party.

Unlike later formal universities, Wuhan Military and Political University did not recruit and train people from those who had completed ordinary secondary education. Lin Xinyi's original purpose in advocating the establishment of this university was to train intellectuals and party cadres for the working class.

Therefore, in addition to the examination system for ordinary middle school graduates, the Military and Political University also had a worker-peasant-soldier recommendation system. After completing literacy education, students were recommended by their factories, communes, and military units to enter the Military and Political University for political education and training, in order to serve as a reserve force for the revolution.

Although these worker-peasant-soldier students were not as well-versed in general education as ordinary high school graduates, when they returned to their original posts after completing their education, they were able to greatly boost local work and thus raise the political awareness of the local people. Compared with the intellectual cadres sent down to the countryside, the advantage of these worker-peasant-soldier cadres was that they were regarded as one of the people and easily gained their trust.

While intellectuals serving as cadres at the grassroots level have an advantage in terms of knowledge, there is one problem that can never be solved: they are ultimately sent from above and will eventually return to their positions. Therefore, the masses cannot expect these intellectuals to fully consider issues from their perspective.

By using these two types of cadres, the Labour Party stabilized the connection between the grassroots and the cadres, while ensuring that the will of the central government could be implemented by the grassroots cadres.

Of course, this model of cadre training will inevitably lead to confrontation between grassroots organizations and upper-level organizations. If it goes too far, it will lead to localism and cause dissatisfaction among some members of the Central Committee. However, if the grassroots party organizations are weakened too much, it will lead to bureaucracy and cause dissatisfaction among the masses with the grassroots party organizations.

In a social environment where the Workers' Party has not yet achieved national unification, the current model still enjoys the support of the majority of party members. Because of the volatile nature of local reactionary forces, the central government cannot adopt a one-size-fits-all policy. Localities must adopt targeted policies based on different social conditions to dismantle the reactionary forces' alliance and safeguard the interests of the working class. Currently, domestic and international reactionary forces still hold a strong advantage; if local party organizations do not unite, they will be unable to resist the combined suppression of these forces.

Because of this situation faced by the Workers' Party, the Military and Political University, an educational base for cultivating new blood for the party organization and unifying the ideological understanding of grassroots party members, naturally became a core institution valued by the Workers' Party. Tian Junyi served as the president of the Military and Political University until he had to resign due to excessive workload. However, those who succeeded him as president of the Military and Political University were still members of the Central Committee. For example, the current president of the Military and Political University is Shen Jin, the former chairman of the Hunan Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Committee.

Lin Xinyi's visit to the Military and Political University was not merely to observe the school's development. After touring the campus, in the principal's office, Lin Xinyi inquired with Shen Jin about the progress of the Youth Political Education Enhancement Class that he had proposed.

Shen Jin replied sincerely, "In March of this year, we selected a group of outstanding students from each grade to form the first class, taught by Party committee members and invited comrades from Japan and Russia. The results were quite good. In June, we formed the second class, and this month we formed the third class..."

After listening, Lin Xinyi took the student lists from the three classes and glanced through them briefly. Then he said to Shen Jin, "Although small-class education can enhance these students' understanding of politics, I believe that correct ideas still need to be widely disseminated in order to bring about a qualitative change from a quantitative one."

The Military and Political University should still arrange lectures on weekends for the entire university, or even for students from other universities to attend, inviting committee members and comrades from the Workers' International to talk about the essence of politics. On the one hand, this would prevent the committee members from becoming too detached from the masses; on the other hand, although the political parties participating in the Workers' International have different understandings of socialism, most of them are superior to us in terms of theoretical research. Learning from their wisdom can at least increase young students' understanding of socialism…”

Shen Jin, of course, would not refute Lin Xinyi's suggestion. He knew that Lin Feng, like Tian Junyi, was a founder of the party and a planner of the Chinese revolution. While he was still considering the overthrow of the Manchus, Lin Feng was already considering how to establish a new order in China. Without the founding of the Labor Party, the Qing Dynasty might have collapsed, but it was hard to say whether the revolution could have developed to this point.

On the question of the future of the revolution, the Party always attached great importance to the suggestions of Committee Member Lin Feng. Even Committee Member Tian Junyi corrected his views several times, aligning himself with the propositions put forward by Committee Member Lin Feng. So far, Committee Member Lin Feng's judgments have not been wrong in terms of the political line. There may have been some minor problems in practice, but they have not hindered the forward development of the Chinese revolution. This naturally strengthened Committee Member Lin Feng's authority in revolutionary theory.

After discussing his ideas about education with Shen Jin, Lin Xinyi also asked to see the list of recommended outstanding young people from various provinces, especially the list from Hunan Province.

He had always been concerned about education in Hunan Province, so he was well aware that someone had indeed emerged from a remote mountain village in Hunan. His biggest worry was that this person might actually be involved in education in this era; that would be problematic. He didn't care much about other historical figures, believing they were products of their time and could naturally be replaced by it.

However, one person believes that although he is also a product of the times, he also has the ability to change the times, and it would be a mistake for him to go into education.

Why was Lin Xinyi worried about someone going into education? Because Hunan has now taken a different path from its historical counterpart. Historically, progressive forces in Hunan were stifled by conservative forces, forcing someone to abandon education and embark on the revolutionary path. But now, the Wuhan regime has firmly suppressed the surrounding conservative forces. With the construction of railways and highways, Hunan and Hubei are nominally two provinces, but in reality, they are more like one province. Conservative forces in Hunan have been completely suppressed along the railway line, and Changsha has truly become a revolutionary stronghold.

If someone were to dedicate themselves to education now, there would be almost no unexpected events that could interrupt their academic journey, which would mean that they would likely become an excellent teacher. Lin Xinyi certainly did not want to see this choice.

Lin Xinyi quickly found the name he wanted to see, and then asked Shen Jin, "Xiangxiang Middle School recommended three people to the Military and Political University. Why was the one with the best evaluation rejected?"

After glancing at the roster, Shen Jin replied knowingly, "Oh, Li Runzhi's classical Chinese essays are indeed outstanding, almost exceeding the level of an average high school graduate. But after looking into it, we found that his science courses are really terrible, especially his math scores, which are below even those of an elementary school graduate."

The explanation from Hunan was that this student received a traditional private school education from a young age, and skipped to middle school after only one year of the modern primary school curriculum. After our investigation, we believe that he should be allowed to complete his middle school education before being assessed. After all, he is a student, not a worker-peasant-soldier student, and his scientific literacy still needs to meet general requirements.

Lin Xinyi knew that what Shen Jin said was actually correct, and that he was the one who first proposed this idea. When the Military and Political University was established, the country tended to focus on humanities and neglect science. Therefore, the Military and Political University had stricter requirements for students who were more inclined to humanities and more lenient requirements for students who were more inclined to science.

Lin Xinyi's reasoning was that socialism is a science, and it is difficult to understand without basic scientific literacy. Students who are biased towards humanities tend to use metaphysics to explain socialism, which may lead to the joke of Confucian socialism. Therefore, it is necessary to strictly control the entry of students who are biased towards humanities into military and political universities.

Shen Jin's explanation did not deviate from his requirements for students when he founded the Military and Political University. However, Lin Xinyi broke his own opinion and decided to give someone a back door, since Lenin was unlikely to stay in China for long.

For Lenin, Europe was his battlefield against capitalism. Although the East was safe, it was far from the battlefield. For such a professional revolutionary, staying away from the battlefield was tantamount to abandoning his work. Therefore, after convening the National Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party, Lenin would still return to Europe to continue the fight.

After speaking with Lenin, Lin Xinyi believed that the Russian Social Democratic Party's National Congress held in the East would truly organize the Bolsheviks. Although the purpose of the congress was to expel the liberals and capitulationists from the Social Democratic Party, it actually established the distinction between the Bolsheviks and the Social Democratic Labour Party. In the future, the Russian working class would regard the Bolsheviks, rather than the Social Democratic Party, as their political representatives.

Although the Mensheviks still held the power to interpret socialist theory, their political line collapsed after the liberals and capitulationists within the party were expelled. The reason Lenin convened the national party congress at this time was because the parliamentary struggle approach—an attempt to compromise with the Tsarist government and pursue a bourgeois democratic path—had failed.

After Lenin expelled the liquidationists and recallists from the party, the Russian Social Democratic Party was effectively left with only one path: violent revolution—a path consistently upheld by the Bolsheviks. In other words, unless the Mensheviks abandoned politics, they had no choice but to follow the Bolsheviks. This is the root cause of Trotsky's attempt to correct the political direction and reconcile with Lenin.

Once the Bolsheviks established their leadership over the party's political line, Lenin would naturally reform the domestic party organizations, thereby establishing the Bolsheviks' leadership over the working class. In this process, the Bolsheviks would be further organized and eventually become an independent political party, leaving the Social Democratic Party as nothing more than a shell.

Having discerned Lenin's political line, Lin Xinyi naturally knew that Lenin's time in the East wouldn't be long. Therefore, ensuring someone personally attended Lenin's lectures was essential. For ordinary people, meeting Lenin was merely a memorable event, but for revolutionaries, receiving Lenin's personal instruction was the foundation for future international revolutionary unity.

The split between the proletarian revolutionary camps in the East and West in another timeline lies in the ideological differences between proletarian leaders, such as Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin, and Stalin and his teachers. Ultimately, these differences in personal ideology turned into differences between parties in different countries, and then expanded to differences between the proletariat in different countries.

While having someone listen to Lenin's lectures might not prevent such disagreements, it at least provides an excuse to resolve them, and it is better to negotiate under the same revolutionary lineage than to turn it into a dispute between heretics.

Moreover, unlike in another timeline, Lenin now has a much deeper understanding of the Chinese revolution because the organizational principles of the Workers' Party were largely based on his principles for founding the party. Apart from not being completely aligned with the Bolsheviks in terms of ideology, Lenin could accept this. After all, the Bolsheviks' ideology could not possibly be more advanced than that of the German working class, and China, with its weaker proletariat, could naturally not be more progressive than the Bolsheviks.

However, Lenin also realized that the vanguard theory encountered many problems after seizing power. When debating the vanguard theory with Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin proposed that the vanguard was a proletarian revolutionary force that had to be established in order to seize power.

Therefore, when Lin Xinyi asked him how to prevent the vanguard from becoming corrupt, Lenin was much more cautious. This was because the Workers' Party was not addressing the future, but rather a practical problem. The Workers' Party had already seized power, and their challenge was how to prevent it from being taken over by a corrupt bureaucracy. This was a problem the European proletariat had not yet encountered, because they had not yet successfully allowed a proletarian regime to survive long enough for the revolutionaries to become corrupt.

After personally observing the Workers' Party's political organization in Wuhan, Lenin agreed with the Workers' Party's new revolutionary theory: that the proletariat could first complete the revolution in colonies or semi-colonies where the old order had been destroyed by capitalism, and establish a revolutionary regime led by a proletarian party. Although the leaders of this regime were the proletariat, its basic supporters were actually the broad peasantry.

Unlike the European proletarian revolutions, whose main enemy was capitalism, the Chinese proletarian revolution faced primarily feudal landlords and a large number of small producers. In the Chinese revolution, capitalism was a progressive force that could be united with. Therefore, Lin Xinyi's concern about the corruption of the vanguard essentially boils down to the question of how the revolutionary regime could be maintained if a large number of small producers infiltrated the Party, transforming it from a representative of the proletariat into a representative of small producers.

This situation cannot be solved by applying the European political model. Lenin opposed the inevitability of the vanguard's corruption because he optimistically believed that regional party organizations and party congresses could curb the corruption of the Central Committee. However, the problem facing the Chinese Workers' Party was not the corruption of the Central Committee, but rather the transformation of the entire party from the proletariat to the representative of the interests of small producers. This meant that the party organization was corrupting from the ground up.

Lenin had indeed not considered this situation, because theoretically, the Chinese proletarian revolution should not have won at this time, but in reality, it did. This means that two practical routes of proletarian revolution emerged in Europe and beyond, which can no longer be explained by a single approach.

Lenin needed to seriously consider what was essentially a rethinking of the uniqueness of the European proletarian revolutionary line—a considerable undertaking, tantamount to rebuilding a new path. Lin Xinyi hoped that someone could take up this line of thinking from the East and thus establish a completely new path for the world revolutionary process.

After all, he knew very well that, apart from Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin, subsequent revolutionary leaders had found it difficult to elevate revolutionary practice into a theoretical framework. Stalin and Trotsky remained confined to the revolutionary framework defined by Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin, unable to escape their theoretical framework. As for Trotsky, he gained the approval of the world proletariat too late, unable to make the Eastern line replace the Soviet line as the mainstream of world revolution, ultimately leading to the proletariat's defeat in the Cold War.

These thoughts flashed through Lin Xinyi's mind as he said to Shen Jin, "What you said makes sense, but this year is the year that the world proletariat recognizes the Asian proletarian movement. We need to get young people and representatives of the Workers' International in contact as much as possible to prepare for the future world revolutionary alliance."

Judging from the current situation, the educational level of most students is actually insufficient for these socialist theorists of the Workers' International. At this point, quantity must be sacrificed for quality. I think your class setup is still too conservative; this kind of elitist small-class education is not suitable for the influx of young, new blood needed for the development of the revolution.

"Add more classes, and let gifted individuals like Li Runzhi receive education first, then observe their progress, rather than conducting assessments before providing further instruction..."

End of this chapter

Chapter 779

Lin Xinyi stayed in Wuhan until mid-February 1912 before taking a train to Qingdao. Although he stayed in Wuhan for two months, it did not significantly hinder the formation of the Asian Joint Fleet. This was because the Japanese, Chinese, and German representatives who decided on the principles for establishing the joint fleet were all in Wuhan. During his time in Wuhan, Lin Xinyi also communicated with the German and Wuhan representatives to determine some of the operating rules for the joint fleet in the future.

Of course, the most important point is that the three parties had in-depth communication on the issue of French Indochina. Before the outbreak of the Far Eastern War, France had always had a dream of an "Oriental France," which was to merge Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan into French colonies in the Far East, thereby establishing an Indochina region under French rule.