Reconstructing Zhou Enlai's Escape from Shanghai in 1931: A Research Note

Abstract

Reconstructing Zhou Enlai's Escape from Shanghai in 1931:A Research Note Lawrence Kessler (bio) More than thirty years ago, Norman Watts (1907- ?), an Englishman temporarily residing in the United States, spoke to a US-China People's Friendship Association audience about the role he played in helping Zhou Enlai (周恩來 1898-1976) escape Shanghai when Guomindang (國民黨 Nationalist Party, or GMD) agents were hunting him down in the 1930s.1 This proved to be a remarkable claim that at the time could not be substantiated. Several years ago, however, Roy Rowan (1920- ) published an account of his time in revolutionary China as an American reporter. He recounted how in August 1947 Zhou Enlai came to United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) headquarters in Kaifeng (開封) in Henan Province to complain that its supplies were not getting to the Communist-led "liberated areas" as promised. After finishing his official business, Zhou had dinner with UNRRA staff and reporters and talked with them into the night. At one point Zhou indicated that Norman Watts, a British businessman, had saved his life years earlier by helping him escape from Shanghai.2 Zhou's public acknowledgement of Watts's help, as recorded by Rowan, seemed to confirm what Watts had claimed many years before and led me to investigate the circumstances of Zhou's escape. Although these accounts link Watts to Zhou's escape from Shanghai, there are many problematical issues surrounding the event. First of all, Rowan's work implied that Zhou was referring to his leaving Shanghai after Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek [蔣介石 1887-1975]) staged his coup in April 1927, and that Watts smuggled Zhou out aboard a freighter bound for Wuhan. Zhou did in fact escape to Wuhan aboard a [End Page 112] British freighter in late May 1927,3 but Watts did not arrive in China until 1929. As for Watts, he thought-although he could not be certain since it had happened nearly fifty years earlier-that his aid to Zhou came after the Japanese bombing of Shanghai in January 1932.4 That could not be possible either, because Zhou was already in the Soviet Central Base Area (蘇區中央 Suqu zhongyang) in South China at that point. I argue that the escape from Shanghai to which Zhou and Watts referred occurred in neither 1927 nor 1932 but at the end of 1931. Beyond this confusion, there are far greater puzzling aspects of the story. The fact of Zhou's escape is widely known, but to my knowledge there is no careful study of exactly how and when he escaped and the route he took to reach the Central Soviet area. Although many of the sources differ substantially, it is still possible to reconstruct this critical time in Zhou's revolutionary career. And the story of his escape, when pieced together, throws new light on the political factionalism and fluidity of party politics in the 1920s and 1930s. Zhou and the CCP in Shanghai, 1927-1931 Before examining his escape, it might be helpful to describe briefly the situation facing Zhou and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in this period. After Jiang's coup in Shanghai and after the failure of various Communist uprisings in the countryside during the remainder of 1927, the CCP underwent successive policy and leadership changes from 1928 to 1931. Through it all, Zhou skillfully protected his position,5 and by the spring of 1931 he was in effect the actual leader of the Party even though he did not hold the position of general secretary. He was in charge, however, of military and soviet affairs and also directed the CCP secret service, which gave him a key position in the affairs of the underground party in Shanghai and other urban areas controlled by the GMD, and it is this role that is most germane to our story. In November 1928, Zhou Enlai set up and directed a Special Section of the Central Committee (中央特科 Zhongyang teke), whose tasks were twofold: build a [End Page 113] security network to protect the underground party and its members, and infiltrate the GMD's operations.6 In the latter task, Zhou had remarkable success. One of his subordinates, Gu Shunzhang (顧順章 1903...