The author Wang Ming was an early member of the Communist Party of China (CCP) and the first of the "28 and a half Bolsheviks," who lost power after the Yan'an Rectification and were gradually marginalized by Mao. After the Yan'an Rectification, the Internationalists, led by him, lost power in the party. He was gradually ostracized by Mao Zedong, who expatriated him to the Soviet Union in 1956. In his book, Wang Ming recounts his decades-long feud with Mao. It provides a fascinating insight into the early history of the CCP.
This book presents the dramatic life of Mao Zedong, revealing a wealth of unheard-of facts: why Mao joined the Communist Party, how he came to sit at the top of the Chinese Communist Party, and how he seized China step by step. Writers Jung Chang and her husband Jon Halliday took ten years to complete this book, interviewing hundreds of Mao's relatives and friends, Chinese and foreign informants and witnesses who worked and interacted with Mao as well as dignitaries from various countries.
Purchase link：https://www.amazon.com/Mao-Story-Jung-Chang/dp/0679746323.
Sima Lu (1919-2021) was an expert on the history of the Chinese Communist Party. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1937, then was politically persecuted in Yan'an, left it, and was expelled from the Party in 1941. In 1952, Sima Lu published “Eighteen Years of Struggle” in Hong Kong, writing about his tortuous journey from defecting to the Communist Party to his awakening and eventual choice of freedom. It became a sensation. He has made in-depth special studies on several leading figures of the CCP, such as Qu Qubai and Zhang Guotao. His memoir, “Witness to the History of the CCP”, is divided into three chapters according to its contents: the first is about his personal experience, the second about the first generation of CCP figures, and the third is devoted to the struggle between Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai.
The author of The Vladimirov Diaries: Yenan, China, 1942~1945, Peter Vladimirov (Sun Ping in Chinese) was a Soviet citizen. The book was first published in the 1980s by Oriental Publishing House and reprinted in March 2004. Peter traveled to Yan'an from 1942 to 1945 as a liaison officer of the Comintern and a correspondent for the TASS news agency. He kept a diary of the political, economic and cultural aspects of Yan'an, including its opium economy. Against the background of the relationship between the CCP and the Soviet Union during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the book describes the CCP's Rectification Movement and the Seventh National Congress. It also comments on the CCP's contact with the U.S. Military Observer Group stationed in Yan'an at the time and on the relationship between the CCP and the Kuomintang.
