A few hours after we met the trade unionists, we were visited by another delegation, this time three workers of the Political Department of the Army, coming from a regiment newly-arrived in Kanchow. In a few brief words they spoke of arriving two days before, their regret that the Army should be in conflict with the trade unions and peasant unions, their failure to get in touch with the Union leaders because of the latter's fear of the military since the murder of Chen, and their willingness to do anything in their power to change the situation. "But we can do nothing alone," they said; "We must have contact and cooperation with the trade unions."
This was the least difficulty, in our eyes, as we quickly told them; we arranged at once a meeting between the Army representatives and the trade unionists. This occurred the next morning, and to the two groups we proposed that a mass meeting be called by the Army, at which the trade union leaders should also speak, to welcome the International Workers Delegation. This meeting could be made the occasion for open mobilization of the revolutionary population and overthrow of the counter-revolutionary officials of the city. This plan was agreed upon without discussion; all those present rushed away to make preparations, and three hours later the meeting was held.
At one o'clock in the afternoon (17 hours after our arrival in Kanchow) we left our boats to be greeted, not by the bankers and merchants associations who had murdered Chen, but by the trade unionists and the new Army division. With banners flying, brass bands playing, fire crackers popping, we marched to the field where the meeting was to be held. Nobody was sure that the meeting would not end in a pitched battle for control of the city.
At one side of the field, against a wall, was erected the speaking platform. On the wall was hung a large portrait of Sun Yat Sen, flanked on either side by pictures of Marx and Lenin. Below was a paper banner inscribed with revolutionary slogans—ending, as all such banners end now in China, with the slogan of "Long Live the World Revolution."
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