血肉磨盘——缅共的悲剧
作者：陀先润
1969年的缅北丛林里，有一批中国年轻人第一次拿起了枪。
他们大多数是昆明、云南各地的红卫兵，文革武斗中的失败派系。武斗结束之后，胜利的一方开始清算，失败的人面临的是政治档案上永久的污点，轻则下乡插队，重则被关押批斗。就在这个时候，有人悄悄告诉他们：去缅甸，跟着缅甸共产党打仗，打完回来，一切既往不咎，还算参加了革命，政治前途一片光明。
没有人告诉他们，缅共内部有一条秘密指令：这批中国人要被安排在战斗第一线，逐渐消耗掉。
他们跨过了边境，以为自己是去参加革命的，不知道自己其实是被送去消耗的。最多的时候，在缅北丛林里打仗的中国人超过一万。他们在那里结婚、生子，有些人在丛林里待了十几年，出去的时候还是二十岁不到的孩子，回来的时候已经是中年人。
但在他们回来之前，还有很多人死在了那片丛林里。死的方式有两种：一种是被缅甸政府军打死，一种是被缅共内部的肃反运动杀死。前者是战场，后者更残酷，因为杀你的人和你睡在同一顶帐篷里。
这就是缅共，中共输出革命历史里最惨烈的一颗棋子。
要理解缅共为什么会走到这一步，必须从它奇特的起源说起。
缅共和马共、泰共不同，后两者从建党第一天就是中共的附属物，是被种下去的。缅共的起源要复杂得多，它的第一任领导人昂山，根本就不是一个共产主义者。昂山是缅甸民族主义者，他一生真正在乎的只有一件事：缅甸独立。为了这个目标，他可以和任何人合作，也可以随时背叛任何人。
1939年，昂山成立德钦党，同时挂了一个缅甸共产党的名义，目的是从共产国际那里拿到支持和经费。他确实拿到了一部分，但拿得不多。1940年他去印度参加印度国民大会，被缅甸殖民政府通缉，辗转逃到中国，想从中共那里寻求援助。结果刚到厦门就被日本人抓了。日本人跟他谈：你不是想让缅甸独立吗，我们大东亚共荣圈，来帮你。 昂山答应了，带着二十九个追随者去了日本占领的海南岛接受军事训练，史称“三十志士”。
1942年日军进攻缅甸，昂山率领他的缅甸独立军配合日军作战，帮助日本打败了英国殖民军，也顺带打了进入缅甸的中国远征军。他对中国战俘的手段极度残忍，这段历史在中国几乎没有人提，但在缅甸是公开的史实。他是缅甸的建国英雄，同时也是曾经屠杀过中国士兵的人。
1944年，眼看日本要输，昂山又转投盟军，带着缅甸军队倒戈。这个时机拿捏得恰到好处，让他在战后既没有被当作战犯清算，又保住了缅甸民族英雄的地位。1947年他被政治对手暗杀，年仅三十二岁，遗孀的女儿就是后来的昂山素吉。
昂山死后，缅共选出了真正意义上的第一任总书记德钦丹东，一个毛派，和中共关系密切，认同武装革命的路线。1948年缅甸独立之后，德钦丹东宣布开始武装斗争，但那个时候中共还没有建政，云南还没有解放，缅北还在国民党残军的控制之下，中共根本顾不上支持缅共。缅共就在几乎没有外援的情况下，在缅甸各地打游击，打得非常艰难。
1950年之后情况本来应该好转，中共建政了，云南也解放了，云南边境和缅北接壤，支持缅共在地理上完全可行。但中共没有支持，原因很现实：缅甸是第一个承认中华人民共和国的非社会主义国家，在外交上对中国极为重要。周恩来的外交系统不愿意为了扶持缅共而得罪缅甸政府，于是缅共就被晾在那里，自生自灭。
更复杂的是缅北的国民党残军问题。国共内战结束之后，一支国民党部队退入缅北，拒绝投降，在缅北建立了根据地，继续抵抗。从1950年到1959年，中缅双方进行了长达九年的军事合作，一起打击这支国民党残军。为了换取缅甸政府的配合，中国做了很大的让步，甚至承认了麦克马洪线的缅甸段，把一些原本属于中国的土地划给了缅甸。用割地换来的外交关系，当然不能因为支持缅共而破坏。
于是整个五十年代，缅共就在中缅两国政府的默契之下被冻结了。德钦丹东被请到北京，在四川、云南等地挂职，住着相当于副部级的待遇，吃着国家的粮，在中国度过了漫长的等待岁月。他以为北京只是暂时不方便支持缅共，等时机成熟就会放他回去大干一场。
他等到了1968年。
那一年，中联部通知他：可以打回去了，中国会支援一个师的兵力帮他夺取缅甸政权。德钦丹东听到这个消息的时候，大概觉得等待终于有了结果。
但真正的支援来了之后，和承诺的差了十万八千里。
说好的一个师，变成了从云南边防部队临时抽调的一千多人；说好的军事顾问团，变成了从云南省军区和昆明军区拼凑来的几个干部。正规军的装备和训练没有，有的是另一种东西：大批的红卫兵。就是那批在文革武斗中落败、被人告知去缅甸可以洗清政治污点的年轻人。
1969年，缅共武装从云南边境打进缅甸，开始了所谓的武装夺取政权。最开始打得不错，缅甸政府军在遭遇战里连连败退，主要是因为这批红卫兵根本不怕死，冲锋的时候嗷嗷叫，缅甸士兵见过这阵势吓得腿软。但不怕死不等于会打仗，随着战线拉长，缺乏战术训练的弱点开始暴露，伤亡越来越大。
前面第一篇提到过的那个场景，就发生在这个阶段。一百多人哭着往山上冲，背着弹药，没有枪，炮火过后进入坑道的只有三个人。这不是个例，这是缅北战场上每天都在发生的事。
与此同时，缅共内部开始了肃反运动。
肃反这件事，是中共送给各地共产党的一份特别礼物。马共搞过，泰共搞过，缅共也没有例外。肃反的逻辑很简单：队伍里一定有内奸，有阶级敌人，要揪出来，要纯洁队伍。怎么揪？严刑逼供。逼出来的口供再去牵连其他人，一个人咬出十个人，十个人再咬出一百个人。缅共的肃反运动里，被杀死的人比被缅甸政府军打死的人还多。有些被杀的人根本就是被冤枉的，是在酷刑之下随便说了一个名字，那个名字就成了下一个被杀的人。
那批红卫兵知青夹在这两种死亡之间：出去打仗被炮火打死，留在营地被肃反杀死。他们在丛林里挣扎着活下去，靠的是一种近乎麻木的求生本能。
1979年，北京决定停止支持缅共。原因和马共、泰共一样：中国需要改善和东南亚国家的关系，缅共成了外交包袱。这一年，邓小平亲自把缅共总书记叫来北京谈话，语气平静地告诉他：你老待在北京不合适，回缅甸去吧。
然后，这批在北京住了将近二十年、享受着副部级待遇的缅共领导人，被礼貌而坚决地送回了缅北，送回那片他们其实从来没有真正管理过的丛林。
与此同时，越南停止了对缅共的援助，但提出了一个条件：要缅共把军队中的中层干部和骨干军官里的中国人全部驱逐出境。这批人，就是在丛林里打了十几年的知青。他们被缅共驱逐，回到中国，发现国内的一切早已经变了。文革结束了，当年的政治污点很多人都翻篇了，那些没有去缅甸的战友该下乡的下乡，该回城的回城，有些人已经找到了工作，结了婚，开始了正常的生活。
而他们，在缅北丛林里蹉跎了十几年，两手空空回来，没有任何安置，没有任何承认，就像从来没有发生过这回事一样。他们想让缅共开一张证明，说明自己参加过革命运动，缅共拒绝了。他们去找国内的有关部门，有关部门也没有任何说法。
一些人因为极度的愤怒和不平，后来又回到了缅北，成为缅共最后阶段瓦解的导火索之一。
1989年，缅共在内部的兵变中彻底崩溃。彭家声、赵尼来、鲍有祥这几个以华人为主的军事指挥官宣布脱离缅共，各自划地为王，建立了后来的几个缅北武装势力。这就是今天缅北乱局的直接起源。
今天人们谈论缅北的毒品、诈骗园区、武装割据，很少有人追溯到这段历史。但如果不知道这段历史，就无法理解缅北为什么会变成今天这个样子。中共在那里种下了一颗棋子，棋子烂掉之后留下了一片烂地，烂地上长出了各种各样的东西，一直长到今天。
缅共的故事和马共、泰共不同。马共和泰共好歹还有一个相对体面的结局，放下武器，领一笔补偿，在某个地方终老。缅共没有这个结局，它是在自我撕裂中死去的，死得混乱，死得难看，死后留下的是一地碎片。
中联部在五十年代选择缅共作为棋子的时候，大概没有想到这颗棋子会烂成这个样子。但棋子烂掉之后，棋手依然坐在棋盘前，选下一颗棋子，走下一步棋。输掉的，永远都是棋子。
编辑：黄吉洲 校对：熊辩 翻译：戈冰
The Party’s Pawns — The Secret History of the CCP’s Export of Revolution (Part IV)
A Flesh-and-Blood Grinding Wheel — The Tragedy of the Communist Party of Burma（CPB）
By Tuo Xianrun
In the jungles of northern Burma in 1969, a group of young Chinese individuals picked up guns for the first time.
Most of them were Red Guards from Kunming and various parts of Yunnan, members of the defeated faction in the armed violent clashes of the Cultural Revolution. After the clashes ended, the victorious faction began a political purge. Those who lost faced permanent stains on their political dossiers—ranging from being sent down to the countryside to settle in production teams at best, to being detained and subjected to struggle sessions at worst. It was precisely at this juncture that someone quietly informed them: go to Burma and fight alongside the Communist Party of Burma (CPB); once the fighting is over and you return, all past offenses will be forgiven, you will be counted as having participated in the revolution, and your political future will be bright.
No one told them that there was a secret directive within the CPB: this group of Chinese was to be deployed on the combat front lines to be gradually used up through attrition.
They crossed the border believing they were going to participate in the revolution, unaware that they were actually being sent to be consumed. At its peak, the number of Chinese fighting in the jungles of northern Burma exceeded ten thousand. There, they married and had children; some spent over a decade in the jungle, leaving as kids under twenty and returning as middle-aged adults.
Yet before they could return, many more died in those jungles. They died in two ways: one was being killed by Burmese government troops, and the other was being killed in the internal purges of the CPB. The former was the battlefield; the latter was even more brutal, because the ones killing you slept in the very same tent.
This was the CPB—the most tragic pawn in the history of the CCP’s export of revolution.
To understand how the CPB reached this point, one must start with its peculiar origins.
Unlike the Malayan Communist Party and the Communist Party of Thailand, which were appendages of the CCP planted from day one, the CPB’s origin was far more complex. Its first leader, Aung San, was not a communist at all. Aung San was a Burmese nationalist who cared about only one thing in his entire life: Burma’s independence. To achieve this goal, he was willing to cooperate with anyone—and equally willing to betray anyone at a moment’s notice.
In 1939, Aung San established the Dobama Asiayone (Thakin Party) while simultaneously using the name of the Communist Party of Burma, aiming to secure support and funding from the Comintern. He did receive some, though not much. In 1940, he traveled to India to attend the Indian National Congress; wanted by the Burmese colonial government, he made his way through circuitous routes to China, seeking assistance from the CCP. Upon arriving in Xiamen, however, he was captured by the Japanese. The Japanese negotiated with him: “Don’t you want independence for Burma? We, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, will help you.” Aung San agreed and led twenty-nine followers to Japanese-occupied Hainan Island for military training, historically known as the “Thirty Comrades.”
In 1942, when the Japanese army invaded Burma, Aung San led his Burma Independence Army to coordinate with Japanese combat operations, helping Japan defeat the British colonial forces and, in the process, also engaging the Chinese Expeditionary Force that had entered Burma. His methods toward Chinese prisoners of war were extremely brutal—a chapter of history rarely mentioned in China, yet a matter of public historical record in Burma. He is a founding national hero of Burma, but he was also someone who had once massacred Chinese soldiers.
In 1944, seeing that Japan was about to lose, Aung San switched allegiance to the Allies once again, turning his Burmese forces around. His timing was impeccably executed, allowing him to avoid being purged as a war criminal after the war while preserving his status as a Burmese national hero. In 1947, he was assassinated by political rivals at the young age of thirty-two; his widow’s daughter is the later Aung San Suu Kyi.
After Aung San’s death, the CPB elected its first genuine General Secretary, Thakin Than Tun—a Maoist who maintained close relations with the CCP and subscribed to the line of armed revolution. Following Burma’s independence in 1948, Thakin Than Tun declared the start of armed struggle. However, at that time the CCP had not yet established its regime, Yunnan had not been liberated, and northern Burma was still under the control of Kuomintang remnants; the CCP simply had no capacity to support the CPB. Operating with virtually no foreign aid, the CPB waged guerrilla warfare across various parts of Burma, fighting under immense hardships.
After 1950, conditions ought to have improved: the CCP had established its state power, Yunnan had been liberated, and the Yunnan border adjoined northern Burma, making support for the CPB geographically entirely feasible. Yet the CCP did not provide support, for very practical reasons: Burma was the first non-socialist country to recognize the People’s Republic of China, making it diplomatically crucial to China. Zhou Enlai’s diplomatic apparatus was unwilling to offend the Burmese government for the sake of backing the CPB, so the CPB was left out in the cold to fend for itself.
Compounding the complexity was the issue of the Kuomintang remnants in northern Burma. Following the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War, a Kuomintang force retreated into northern Burma, refused to surrender, established base areas there, and continued their resistance. From 1950 to 1959, China and Burma engaged in nine years of military cooperation to jointly strike against these Kuomintang remnants. To secure the Burmese government’s cooperation, China made significant concessions, even recognizing the Burmese section of the McMahon Line and ceding to Burma lands that originally belonged to China. A diplomatic relationship bought through land concessions naturally could not be ruined over supporting the CPB.
Thus, throughout the 1950s, the CPB was placed on ice under a tacit understanding between the Chinese and Burmese governments. Thakin Than Tun was invited to Beijing, where he held nominal posts in places like Sichuan and Yunnan, enjoyed treatment equivalent to a vice-ministerial rank, lived off the state’s coffers, and spent years waiting in China. He believed Beijing was merely temporarily constrained from supporting the CPB, and that once conditions matured, he would be sent back to make a grand splash.
He waited until 1968.
That year, the International Liaison Department notified him: he could fight his way back, and China would provide a division’s worth of military force to help him seize state power in Burma. Hearing this news, Thakin Than Tun likely felt his long wait had finally yielded results.
When the actual support arrived, however, it fell light-years short of what had been promised.
The promised division turned into just over a thousand men temporarily transferred from Yunnan border defense units; the promised military advisory group turned into a handful of cadres cobbled together from the Yunnan Provincial Military District and the Kunming Military Region. Regular army equipment and training were absent; what was present was something else: large numbers of Red Guards. They were precisely those young people who had lost in the Cultural Revolution’s violent factional warfare and were told that going to Burma could cleanse their political stains.
In 1969, the armed forces of the CPB struck into Burma from the Yunnan border, initiating so-called armed seizure of state power. Initially, the fighting went well, with Burmese government troops retreating repeatedly in encounter battles—primarily because this group of Red Guards were completely fearless of death, howling as they charged, leaving Burmese soldiers weak-kneed with fright at such a sight. Yet fearlessness of death did not equate to knowing how to fight. As the front lines stretched, the weakness of lacking tactical training began to be exposed, and casualties mounted ever higher.
The scene mentioned earlier in Part I occurred precisely during this phase. Over a hundred people charged up the mountain crying, carrying ammunition without rifles, and after the artillery barrage, only three entered the bunker. This was no isolated incident; this was what occurred daily on the northern Burma battlefield.
At the same time, an internal purge campaign began within the CPB.
This business of internal purges was a special gift bestowed by the CCP upon communist parties everywhere. The Malayan Communist Party ran them, the Communist Party of Thailand ran them, and the CPB was no exception. The logic of these purges was simple: there must be spies and class enemies within the ranks, who must be rooted out to purify the organization. How were they rooted out? Through torture and forced confessions. Confessions extracted under duress were then used to implicate others—one person implicated ten, and ten implicated a hundred. In the CPB’s purge campaign, more people were killed than were killed by Burmese government forces. Some of those killed were entirely framed, having blurted out a random name under severe torture, and that name then became the next person to be executed.
That cohort of Red Guard educated youth was caught between these two forms of death: dying from artillery fire when going out to fight, or being executed in purges when remaining in camp. They struggled to survive in the jungle, relying on a near-numb survival instinct.
In 1979, Beijing decided to halt its support for the CPB. The reason was identical to that regarding the Malayan Communist Party and the Communist Party of Thailand: China needed to improve relations with Southeast Asian nations, and the CPB had become a diplomatic liability. That year, Deng Xiaoping personally summoned the CPB General Secretary to Beijing for a talk, telling him in a calm tone: “It is not appropriate for you to stay in Beijing continuously; go back to Burma.”
And so, this group of CPB leaders who had resided in Beijing for nearly two decades enjoying vice-ministerial-level treatment were politely yet firmly escorted back to northern Burma—back to that jungle they had never actually managed.
Concurrently, Vietnam halted its aid to the CPB, but attached a condition: that the CPB expel all Chinese nationals among its mid-level cadres and backbone officers. These people were precisely the educated youth who had fought in the jungle for over a decade. Expelled by the CPB, they returned to China only to discover that everything domestically had long since changed. The Cultural Revolution was over, the political stains of those years had been cleared for many, and those comrades who had not gone to Burma had either gone to the countryside or returned to the cities as appropriate; some had already found jobs, married, and begun normal lives.
As for them, having squandered more than a decade in the jungles of northern Burma, they returned empty-handed without any resettlement provisions or official recognition, as if none of it had ever happened. They sought a certificate from the CPB attesting that they had participated in the revolutionary movement, but the CPB refused. They approached relevant domestic authorities in China, yet those authorities offered no statement whatsoever.
Out of extreme anger and injustice, some of them subsequently returned to northern Burma, becoming one of the fuses that ignited the final collapse of the CPB.
In 1989, the CPB completely disintegrated amidst internal mutinies. Military commanders of predominantly ethnic Chinese background—such as Pheung Kya-shin, Zhao Nilai, and Bao Youxiang—declared their separation from the CPB, carved out their own domains as warlords, and established the armed factions of northern Burma that followed. This is the direct origin of the chaos in northern Burma today.
When people talk today about drugs, scam compounds, and armed warlordism in northern Burma, very few trace back to this period of history. Yet without knowing this history, one cannot understand why northern Burma turned into what it is today. The CCP planted a pawn there; after that pawn rotted away, it left behind a piece of ruined land, and upon that ruined land grew all manner of things that continue to grow to this day.
The story of the CPB differs from those of the Malayan Communist Party and the Communist Party of Thailand. The Malayan and Thai communist parties at least had relatively dignified endings—laying down their arms, collecting a sum of compensation, and living out their days in some quiet corner. The CPB enjoyed no such ending; it died amidst self-tearing, dying in chaos, dying hideously, leaving behind nothing but scattered fragments.
When the International Liaison Department selected the CPB as a pawn in the 1950s, it likely did not foresee that this pawn would rot to such an extent. Yet after the pawn rotted away, the chess player remained seated at the board, picking the next pawn and making the next move. Those who lose are forever the pawns.
Editor: Huang Jizhou Proofreader: Xiong Bian Translator: Ge Bing
