In 1924, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party sent Chen, Li Dazhao, and Zhang Tailei to Moscow.
To avoid the arrests of Trotskyists, she and her husband Peng Shuzhi and their three children left Shanghai in December 1948.
A year and a half later, in May 1951, after the arrest of a prominent Chinese Trotskyist in Vietnam, the family moved again to France.
This aunt was skilled at embroidery and sold her works to many wealthy families when they wanted embroidered flowers for their daughters’ dowries.
Realizing that the abolishment of the Imperial Exam nullified traditional career prospects, Dezhao followed suit with his wealthier cousins who went to Japan to study.
The dowry money will be used for her education.” In her memoir, Bilan wrote this decision from her father was the second most critical event that shaped her life.
[12] In 1924, the CCP, acting against Comintern’s guidelines and Chen Duxiu, formed the First United Front Alliance with the Guomindang.
But even after Chiang ended the Alliance and started to kill many Communists, Stalin told the CCP to ally with the Wang Jingwei faction based in Wuhan, which the Soviet leaders called “revolutionary Guomindang.”[13] Trotsky disagreed with Stalin and called for the CCP to regain “complete independence” from the Guomindang’s Wang Jingwei faction.
They wanted to gather other Communist members who also disagreed with CCP decisions and organize the Left Opposition.
[16] Bilan told Chen Duxiu her thoughts as she pondered whether she should divorce Shuzhi to avoid being expelled.
Chen Duxiu told Bilan that he thought if he and Shuzhi were to be expelled, it was not because they betrayed the revolution but because the CCP had become corrupted.
Previously, Bilan refused to read the documents as she believed there should not be an oppositional organization inside the Party.
[18] In 1932, Bilan was introduced to Cai Kui, editor of the Female Youth Monthly 女青年月刊, published by the All-China Young Women’s Christian Association.
The royalty the couple gained from writing the pamphlet helped them temporarily relieve their financial strains.
To help with the family’s financial situation now that Shuzhi was in prison, Bilan took up a teacher’s position Cai Kui introduced her.
Bilan wrote in her memoir that many of them had been studying at the school for two years before she was hired, and they could pen short articles.
In her memoir, Bilan wrote that these visits to their dwellings were meaningful because, in the past, she only spoke to them in protests and at meetings but had never gone to their dorms to talk to them.
[22] Bilan wrote that the most miserable were the female apprentices, most of whom were aged 15 to 19 and were hired from rural villages to Shanghai.
[23] Bilan, her husband Shuzhi, and their children moved to Hong Kong in December 1948 to avoid arrest.
But as other Chinese Trotskyists in Hong Kong fell under arrest, the family moved again, on January 19, 1950, to Vietnam.
After a year and a half of living in Vietnam, the Chinese Trotskyist Liu Jialiang was arrested, and Bilan and Shuzhi decided to move the family again.
With help from other Chinese Trotskyists and friends, on May 26, 1951, the couple were able to take their daughter and younger son with them to flee to France.
Bilan’s translated article “Looking Back Over My Years with Peng Shu-Tse” was published in the first pamphlet, The Chinese Revolution Part 1.
First, “reactionary” wars that were fought amongst imperialist empires, feudal nation-states, and warlords inside China.
[26] This kind of war was aimed at exploiting the masses in the lower social echelon and weak nations and allocating colonies.
[29] Bilan wrote that China’s war resisting Japan was to fight for the nation’s survival and was, by nature, revolutionary.
Bilan proposed that women’s organizations should pay special attention to female workers to address these issues.
Bilan suggested that organizations needed to help female workers address these issues to have more time and energy to participate in China’s war of resisting Japan.
In 1967, shortly after the start of the Cultural Revolution, Bilan in an interview expressed her thoughts on the movement and Mao.
[30]As such, Bilan viewed Mao’s Cultural Revolution as both “theoretically absurd” and practically “foolish.” She expressed that what China needed urgently was to help the illiterate masses become literate and increase their pay and living standards.