ment was again made until the 16th; on that date it was again postponed. Whereupon, at an enlarged Joint Conference in Wuhan, it was decided that the Central Kuomintang and the National Government should both begin office to succeed the Joint Conference without further waiting. But Chiang Kai Shek sent out a telegram over the country declaring that the Central Committee had not moved to Wuhan. At the same time, the Kuomintang was circulated with telegrams stating that the Plenary Conference of the Central Executive Committee had been cancelled.
Here was a definite struggle. The Central Kuomintang, openly challenged by Chiang Kai Shek, began to open its ears to the complaints pouring in from the people's organizations against this budding militarist. Suddenly the party awoke to what had been going on. Already, on March 15, the Hupeh Trade Union Executive issued a public denunciation of Chiang Kai Shek. On March 16, the Executive Committee of Hupeh Kuomintang issued a long statement, indicting Chiang Kai Shek as counter-revolutionary. This statement, publised in the Min Kuo Jih Pao, Hankow, March 16, 1927, contains the following declarations:
The party has lost its power, and all the power has gone to the hands of a dictator and the highest organization of theparty has lost its functions.
Help the Central Executive Committee to overthrow the condition of usurpation, to restore the spirit of democracy, to make all party members obey the orders of the party. All political and military affairs should be unified under the direction of the party . . . . . Every person, no matter who he is, should submit to the power of the party . . . . Only the oppressed masses are the supervisor of the party. Only the principles of Chung Li (Sun Yat Sen) and his spirit are the director of the party…
Now it is time for us to manifest the power of the party. Whether our party will even exist depends entirely upon whether we can make the power of the party felt.
On March 25, a special issue of the Kuomintang official daily paper, Min Kuo Jih Pao, for the discussion of the party situation, contained an article entitled: "Arise, revolutionary masses, and unite together to overthrow Chiang Kai Shek." Some paragraphs from this article follow:
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