History of Modern China (1840-1960)

IV) a) 1921-27: Formation of the CCP; Reorganization of the KMT; the First United Front

Jobial Alex

 (Discuss about the origins of Chinese Communism as well as the history of CCP from its inception till 1927.
 What are the factors that brought KMT and CCP together in 1924? Why did they drift apart?)

Chinese Communist Party

Chinese awareness of Marxism probably began around 1905 when the Min-pao published a biography of Karl Marx
in its second issue. Although there was an incipient recognition of Marx and Engels as the founding fathers of
“scientific socialism," the influence of Marxism remained small until the May Fourth period when the success of
the Bolshevik Revolution dramatized the power of such an ideology points out Immanuel C Y Hsu. The intellectual
appeal of Marxism-Leninism, the voluntary offer of friendship by the Soviet regime, and the practical success of the
Bolshevik Revolution combined to create a powerful ideological impact in China. Marxist and Leninist study groups
began to spring up, and the National University of Peking, where intellectual curiosity and freedom of expression
were most pronounced, became a hotbed of radicalism.

As early as the middle of 1918, the librarian Li Ta-chao professed his conversion to Marxism and founded the New
Tide Society in the autumn of 1918, followed shortly by the Marxist Research Society. Ch’en Tu-hsiu became the
second most important convert to Marxism, and organized a Marxist Study Society in May 1920 and a Socialist
Youth Corps in August, which were the forerunners of the Chinese Communist Party.

By March 1920 the various Marxist groups in Peking had united to form the Peking Society for the Study of Marxist
Theory. Grigorii Voitinsky, an agent of the Third (Communist) InternationaI, arrived in China in early 1920 and he
conferred with Li and Chen about organizing a party. The upshot of these critical conferences was the decision to
establish a branch party in Shanghai under Ch'en and another in Peking under Li. Only the consolidation of these
two branches remained for the unification of communism in China.

On 1st July 1921, the founding meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-since called the First Congress of the
Party-was held secretly at a girls' boarding school in the French Concession of Shanghai and was attended by
twelve delegates. In spite of their absence, Ch'en and Li were honored as the co-founders of the party. Ch'en and Li
differed considerably on the revolutionary role of the workers and the peasants. Ch'en subscribed to the general
European Marxist emphasis on the workers and the implicit disdain toward the inert peasant mass. He believed
that the progressive urban elements should spearhead the movement while the backward peasantry followed
meekly. Chu Chiu-pai likewise rejected the idea that the agrarian sector could take the lead in reforming the
Chinese society. On the other hand, Li Ta-chao, imbued with a more romantic attitude toward social change, took
the opposite view to stress the importance of the peasantry.

Although the party supported Chen's position, Li's views offered a powerful alternative and strongly influenced the
thinking of his young assistant, Mao, whom he introduced to Marxism in 1918 and whom he successfully inspired
with the Populist, nationalistic views on the peasant role in the revolution. After Li was executed in 1927, it was
Mao who carried on the peasant struggle and put his mentor's ideas into practice.

James E Sheridan states that although interest in Marxist ideas was widespread, and though these ideas by the
mid-20s were exerting a powerful influence on the intellectual world, membership in the CCP grew slowly at the
outset. It numbered only 200 or 300 by the beginning of 1923, and still didn’t exceed 1000 by the spring of 1925.
Only then did the membership mushroom.

The May 4th Movement initiated the modern labor movement in China. In response to the May 4 th incident many
workers participated in the demonstrations, in the anti-Japanese boycott and the strikes held in protest against
government repression. A number of new labor organizations sprang into existence in 1920 and 1921, including
several genuinely working class groups. The first Chinese Trade Union Congress was established in 1 st May 1922.
The Communists were active in organizing and leading this movement, but Jean Chesneaux insists that the
organizational impulse came directly from the workers; the leaders simply helped guide and direct a movement
that had spontaneously come into being. This labor movement was most advanced in Shanghai and Canton, and its
1st great achievement was the Hong Kong Seamen’s Strike of 1922. The year 1922 had been the year of worker’s
unrest throughout China opines Amit Bhattacharyya. Together with Li Li-san and Liu Shao-chi Mao organized the
Anyuan coal-mine workers and the railway workers and led them in a series of strikes. He took the initiative in
organizing worker’s demonstrations and spreading them throughout Hunan and in this way, forming an All Hunan
Workers’ Federation. In addition to the establishment of labor unions, evening schools were set up for peasants
and workers which bore impressive results. Say for instance, by the end of 1922, 30,000 to 40,000 workers and
artisans were enrolled in a self-education college set up by Mao.

The momentum achieved by the Chinese labor movement after the Hong Kong strike came to a bloody halt in
February 1923 when Wu P’ei-fu, the dominant warlord of that time, quelled the movement. For the next 2 years
there was something of a lull in the movement, particularly in central and north China where warlords ruled
unopposed. However, on 30th May 1925 the lull came to a crashing end with a massive demonstration involving
several 1000 people. These great strikes, argues Sheridan, were political in nature, not economic. It was a
resounding cry of protest against imperialism in China, and it resulted in specific demands for freedom of speech
and assembly, the withdrawal of foreign armed forces from Shanghai and the abolition of extraterritoriality.

Another mass movement also took hold during this period-among the peasantry. Like the labor movement, the
peasant movement started shortly after the May 4th era. Ever since 1921, Peng Pai had started organizing the
peasants in Kwangtung and was able to set up a strong political base there. Movements such as these also took
place in provinces like Hunan, Hupei, Kiangsi, Shensi, Shantung etc. Its major growth, however, didn’t occur until
1926 and 1927. The Communists in their orthodox preoccupation with the organization of labor, more or less
ignored the peasantry in the first couple of years of the party’s existence.

With the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925, the Chinese Communists lost one of their most trusted friends. Chiang Kai
Shek followed Sun Yat-sen as the head of the KMT. With this change, the KMT also underwent a metamorphosis. In
place of a revolutionary organization, states Amit Bhattacharyya, it degenerated first into a reactionary and then a
fascist organization. A reactionary dictatorship grew under Chiang. On the other hand, the CCP and the leftist
elements within the KMT defeated the main forces of the warlords and set up a revolutionary center in Wuhan.
Thus Wuhan became the center of revolutionary forces under the CCP and Nanking under Chiang became the
center of counter-revolutionary forces.

Meanwhile, military preparations had been made to initiate the “Northern Expedition”. These northern warlords
had been the main instruments of imperialist control inside China. The March of the revolutionary army was so
swift that between July and December 1926, a number of provinces such as Hunan, Hupeh, Fukien, Chekiang,
Kiangsi and Anhwei fell to the revolutionary forces.

At the end of 1925, the students of Hunan studying at the National Institute in Canton went into the midst of the
peasants and formed peasant associations first in the townships, then in the districts. The victorious advance of the
Northern Expeditionary Army towards the Yangtze Valley made Hunan the center of the nation-wide peasant
movement. The peasant association became the sole organ of authority in the countryside. It was really a form of
political power under the peasants’ revolutionary dictatorship. Night schools were opened so that the peasants
could learn to read and write for the first time in their lives. Peasants’ militia was also organized for self-defense.

The rise of the nation-wide peasant movement could not be separated from Mao’s revolutionary activities
suggests Bhattacharyya. At that time, he had been running the National Institute of Peasant Movement in Canton
from 1925 to 1926. With the beginning of the Northern Expedition, he left for Shanghai to take the post of
Chairman of the Committee on the peasant movement. Afterwards, he proceeded to Wuhan to be the secretary-
general of the National Peasant Association.

Meanwhile, the advance of the Northern Expeditionary Army was followed by an uprising of the workers in
Shanghai in February 1927 which was brutally suppressed by Chiang. The right-wing KMT officers staged similar
massacres in Nanking, Canton and among the peasants in the countryside. An armed uprising in Nanchang on 1 st
August 1927 marked the beginning of the struggle of the revolutionary armed forces under the sole leadership of
CCP against counter-revolution. It also marked the birth of the People’s Army of China.

An emergency conference of the CC of the CCP, held on 7 th August 1927 in the face of the armed uprising in
Nanchang and the counter-revolutionary onslaughts by the KMT, held that as the agrarian revolution was the key
to the Chinese democratic revolution the party must lead the peasants in solving the agrarian problem by
revolutionary means. The conference called on the peasants to launch uprisings at the time of the autumn harvest
to save the revolution. This uprising is known as the Autumn Harvest Uprising. The Nanchang rising was followed
by the Canton uprising on 11 th December 1927 under the leadership of the CCP wherein a democratic government
of workers and peasants was set up.

Meanwhile, the failure of the Autumn Harvest Uprising compelled Mao to take refuge in the isolated mountain
region of Chingkang-shan. There he was joined later by another armed group under the leadership of Chuh Teh,
thereby forming the revolutionary base of the Chinese Red Army.

The Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) Reorganization, 1923-24

The Bolshevik Revolution not only influenced the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but also
prompted the reorganization of the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT). Dr. Sun Yat Sun, father of the Chinese
Revolution, had long been disappointed by the lack of unity and discipline within his party, and by the Western
reluctance to assist him in developing China. Throughout the republican period, Sun was plagued by the three-fold
problem of foreign imperialism, party disunity, and civil strife, from which he could find no escape and solution. In
his frustration, he found the sparkling success of the Bolshevik Revolution doubly inspiring; and the Soviet offer of
friendship and abolition of the unequal treaties gratifying and refreshing. He was anxious to reorganize the KMT
after the successful Soviet model and to seek Soviet aid for his National Revolution points out Hsu.

The Comintern dispatched Adolf Joffe to China to work out the basis of Soviet-KMT-CCP cooperation. As a result of
his negotiations with Sun the policy of "alliance with the Soviets; admission of the Communists" was adopted on
September 4, 1922. This became the cardinal principle in the reorganization of the KMT. A nine-man committee
including Ch'en Tu-hsiu was appointed to take charge of the reorganization, and a manifesto drafted by Hu Han-
min was announced on January I, 1923.

On January 12, the Comintern instructed the Chinese Communists to enter the Nationalist Party and take part in
Sun's bourgeois democratic revolution. However, the CCP itself was not dissolved; the Communists entered the
KMT as individuals rather than as a bloc and they agreed to accept the order and discipline of the Nationalist
leaders.

The Sun-Joffe negotiations led to a joint manifesto on January 26, 1923, which included four main points: (I) it is
not possible to carry out Communism or the Soviet system in China at present; (2) the Soviet government reaffirms
its earlier announcement of September 27, 1920, regarding the renouncement of special rights and privileges in
China; (3) a mutual understanding is reached with regard to the future administration and reorganization of the
Chinese Eastern Railway; and (4) the Soviets disavow any imperialistic intentions or policies in Outer Mongolia. This
manifesto became a prelude to the United Front. Hsu points out that in his negotiations with Joffe Sun
demonstrated hardheaded practical statesmanship.

Following the Sun-Joffe agreement, the Soviets sent Mikhail Borodin, an experienced diplomat, to help Sun
reorganize the KMT, and General Galen to help train a party army. In March 1923, Sun set up a revolutionary
government in Kwangtung. In August 1923, he dispatched a young general, Chiang Kai-shek, to study first-hand the
Soviet military system, the political indoctrination of the Red army, and the methods of discipline in the Bolshevik
Party. Soon after his return, he was commissioned by Sun to found the Whampoa Military Academy outside
Canton.

At the first National Congress of the KMT held from January 20 to 30, 1924, and attended by 165 delegates, Sun
stressed the importance of party unity and the development of a strong organization for national unification and
reconstruction. He called on the members to sacrifice their personal freedom and contribute their talents
unselfishly to the revolutionary objectives. The Congress created a Presidium of five members, including Li Ta-chao.
It closed with a manifesto emphasizing its anti-imperialist and anti-warlord stand, its dedication to the Three
People's Principles and the Five-Power Constitution, and its determination to abolish the unequal treaties
externally and to establish local self-government internally.

The new aims of the Chinese revolution were laid down in the manifesto. KMT referred to itself as the
revolutionary party just like that of the Russian Bolshevik Party. Furthermore, the propaganda, structure and
methods of agitation were also the same. However, Sun made it clear that this similarity was only superficial and it
doesn’t mean the adoption of Communist ideology. Sheridan points out that the party organization was modeled
after that of the Russian Bolshevik Party to create a much higher degree of centralization than had existed, and far
more rigorous and effective party discipline. The party accepted the principles of democratic centralism, in which
each level of organization obeyed unquestionably the decisions of higher levels, and Sun Yat-sen, at the apex of the
party pyramid, was given extraordinary dictatorial authority not common even to ordinary Communist
organizations.

The manifesto of the restructured party consisted of 3 parts; objectives, modified 3 people’s principles and
immediate programs. The chief objective of KMT was the national revolution. It was stated that the anti-imperialist
slogan must be coupled with the creation of a strong centralized government which will be the “people’s
government”.

The reorganized party reaffirmed its commitment to the ideology developed by Sun Yat-sen; although under
Russian prodding, anti-imperialism was emphasized more strongly than ever. The core of Sun’s political ideology
lay in his so-called Three Principles of the People: nationalism, democracy and people’s livelihood, which he had
formulated in 1905.

Sun’s principle of nationalism (Min Tzu Chui) had undergone the greatest changes since its earliest formulation.
Originally it had been largely synonymous with anti-Manchuism. In the early 1920s Sun began to revive the
principle of nationalism, and in his 1924 lectures presented it as a vigorous denunciation of imperialism in China.
According to him, China must create a new national solidarity on the basis of its clans and families, refuse to buy
foreign goods, and try to limit foreign exploitation. He envisaged the complete unity of the 5 races of China, viz.
Han, Manchu, Tibetan, Mongol and Muslim. KMT would be dependent on the support of the masses,
encompassing, intellectuals, laborers, peasants and merchants. The Kuomintang was to establish an organized
connection with the minority races in order that concrete measures may be devised for solution of their specific
problems and realization of their specific needs. After the successful completion of the national revolution, KMT
would form a union of independent nations.

In discussing his principle of democracy (Min Chian Chui), Sun reasoned that the 20 th century was the age of
democracy and that China should be up-to-date and part of that age. He had worked out a new and better system
of democracy in which the populace would turn over political power to intellectually superior individuals whom
they would control through the rights of suffrage, recall, initiative and referendum and to whom they would
entrust a government organized on the basis of a “5-power constitution” providing for executive, legislature and
judiciary branches of govt and also for censorate and civil service examination branches.

Sun’s 5 power constitution was not to come into effect immediately, rather he conceived of the revolution in China
in 3 phases: the military conquest of the country; a period of tutelage and the realization of the constitutional
government. In the first phase, the new army of KMT will be used to put an end to warlordism, political
reunification should be achieved and national government of KMT established. This theory became the basis of the
northern expedition. The 2nd phase is a phase of benevolent paternalism by KMT leadership when the masses will
be made aware of their rights and obligations as well as the significance of democracy. A government based on the
5-power constitution will be established in the last phase which is a phase of popular sovereignty. Only those who
adhere to the principles of KMT will be a part of the new system. However, supporters of the revolution could
remain as the citizens of China.

Sun, remarks Sheridan, was especially vague about his third principle, the principle of livelihood (Min Sheng Chui).
He identified it with socialism and with communism, but the comparisons among them were far from rigorous. Sun
vigorously attempted to repudiate Marx, particularly on the need of class struggle; he wanted to improve the
standard of living for the mass of the population through industrialization and economic modernization, but he
wanted even more to avoid class warfare. To improve living standards without bloodshed, Sun advocated the
regulation of capital and reduction of the exploitative potentialities of land ownership. He recommended the use
of agricultural machinery, chemical fertilizers and the overall improvement of agricultural technology to achieve
greater productivity. In short he postulated humane and progressive economic goals. Unfortunately, he developed
no specific, practicable economic programs to achieve them.

The manifesto also enshrined the immediate programs of the party encompassing international as well as
domestic programs. The sovereignty of China has to be recognized by all nations of the world. All unequal treaties
must be given up by the imperial powers. Local self-government units have to be established. The practice of
military conscription should be introduced and the recruits should be given political and vocational education. The
interests of peasants and workers should be taken care of. Moreover all citizens should be guaranteed certain civic
rights.

The First Party Congress accepted Sun’s 3 Principles as the basis of party policy and the manifesto of the congress
summarized the principles with emphasis on their revolutionary and anti-imperialist aspects. The congress also
approved the policy of KMT-Communist cooperation by allowing Communists to join the KMT-a step that had
profound consequences.
The First United Front (1923-1927)

The Russians were largely responsible for establishing the coalition between the Kuomintang and the Chinese
Communist Party. In the Second Congress of the Comintern (3 rd International), 1920, Lenin put forth his arguments
(Thesis on Colonial Questions) on the question of the alliance of bourgeois democracy with the Communist party.
The Communist Party was in its infancy and the Russians thought that they could not count on it to initiate and
carry through the kind of revolution they hoped would undercut imperialism in China. Moreover the Russians
considered that the socialist revolution in China was a long time off, that the revolution was in its bourgeois-
democratic phase and that the KMT was the chief vehicle for the revolution during that phase. The KMT, the
Russians told the Chinese Communists, should not be viewed as the political party of the bourgeoisie, but as an
alliance of revolutionary elements from all 4 major classes: peasantry, workers, intellectuals and petty bourgeoisie.

The CCP and KMT could both see that the combined power of warlordism and imperialism was so great that the
unity of all revolutionary forces was obviously desirable propounds Sheridan. The Communists recognized that
their party was still small and weak, and that it could profit from the contacts and reputation of the KMT. Sun on
the other hand, appreciated the potential strength of the labor movement on which the Communists had
concentrated their organizational energies immediately after founding their party. It has been suggested that he
specially wanted the Communists subject to the control of the KMT as a means of precluding their independent
development and the class warfare he thought that development would produce. Sun with Comintern agreement,
wanted a coalition; he wanted the Communists to join the KMT as individuals; he would not agree to the 2 parties
functioning separately but in tandem, as a kind of united front.

Some CCP leaders also favored the policy of coalition. Li Ta-chao, for example, thought that international
capitalism exploited all classes in China, and therefore all classes should unite to oppose it. Li was less inclined to a
single revolutionary class, the proletariat than to the entire nation, which he considered a “proletariat nation,” all
elements of which have to struggle together against imperialism. Mao Tse-tung also supported the coalition policy.
However, many communists strenuously objected to joining the KMT; they didn’t agree with the Russians’
theoretical justification for the coalition. The Chinese argued that the KMT was the party of the bourgeoisie; they
might have added that the conception of a party as an amalgam of several classes was not very good Marxism. In
fact many thought that the new policy meant the end of the independent existence of the CCP. Nevertheless, the
First United Front (1923-27) between the CCP and the KMT was formed at the third congress of the CCP, 1923 at
Canton.

A basic contradiction threatened the coalition from the outset. Despite the Russian analysis of the mixed
composition of the KMT, it was fundamentally the party of the bourgeoisie. Though some of its leading spokesmen
talked in fiery terms of world revolution they did not speak for all members of the party, and they did not mean
everything they said. The KMT wanted to eliminate the warlords, abolish the unequal treaties and begin to
modernize the country under the guidance of the educated propertied class. The Communists also opposed
warlords and imperialism, but they envisaged ultimate power in the hands of the workers and peasants. The
ultimate aims of the 2 parties, of course, determined the method each was inclined to use. The Communists
wanted to overthrow the warlords and oust the imperialists through the organization of a social revolution, thus
combining social and national goals. The KMT wanted to achieve the first 2 objectives, but opposed class warfare.
Conflict between the 2 parties was, therefore, inevitable.

The contradiction at the root of the KMT-Communist coalition inevitably grew more acute as the 2 parties worked
to develop their particular organizational and power interests. After Communist members joined the KMT, they
continued to put their energies into the labor movement and later into the peasant movement as well. Many KMT
people also participated in various aspects of this work, but by and large the mass movements became Communist
strongholds of organization and influence. The KMT on the other hand, gathered chief strands of military power
into its hands.

(Describe briefly about the NE from the initial paragraphs) The expansion of the mass movement after the
Northern Expedition (NE) reached Yangtze exacerbated the contradictions in the KMT-CCP coalition and hastened
its collapse. The expansion and militancy of the mass movement frightened landlords, businessmen and moderate
and conservative politicians and military officers. And this fear of the mass movement nourished fear and suspicion
of CCP opines Sheridan.

The burgeoning mass movement presented the Communists with a dilemma. If they encouraged the peasants and
provided them with leadership and support, it would doubtless bring to an end the Communist coalition with KMT,
to whose members such radicalism was unacceptable. If, on the other hand, they tried to maintain the coalition,
they would be in the awkward position of attempting to restrain a revolutionary movement that they had earlier
encouraged. Advice from the Comintern was not very helpful because it advised doing both: “(support) all the
economic demands of the peasant masses,” but “stay in the KMT and intensify ….. work in it.”

Chiang Kai-shek had already begun during the Northern Expedition to take a strong anti-Communist stance. At the
end of 1926 one of his closest advisers, Chen Kuo-fu, had organized an anti-Bolshevik League in Kiangsi, and early
in 1927 Chiang had denounced the aggressive attitude of the Chinese Communists and proposed to “put a stop to
their activities.” In March he had executed several Communist labor leaders, and ordered the dissolution of at least
2 trade union councils. He had also reorganized the Municipal governments of Nanchang and Kiukiang, to remove
Wuhan sympathizers. In April 1927 came the most explicit-and overwhelming-evidence of Chiang’s anti-
Communist position. For now having occupied Nanking and Shanghai Chiang was ready to move in force against
the Communists. With military support from the staunchly anti-Communist Kwangsi Army, financial support from
Shanghai bankers and at the very least the moral support of the foreign powers, Chiang struck at the Communists
and revolutionary organizations with devastating force. This finally marked the end of the united front between
the CCP and the KMT. The Wuhan government promptly branded Chiang a counter-revolutionary and stripped him
of his offices. Chiang responded by setting up his own national government in Nanking on 18th April 1927.

A great deal of dispute has taken place about the so-called Revolution of 1925-1927, with the KMT-CCP conflict at
its core and about the role of the Russians. Sheridan states that the Russians used the Comintern to guide the
Chinese revolution to their own ends and made decisions without due regard for Chinese conditions, or, ironically,
for Marxist ideology. The Chinese Communists, like disciplined Communist revolutionaries, tried to obey the
Comintern, but they also tried, like revolutionary Communists, to promote social revolution. It was impossible to
do both for very long because sponsorship of agrarian revolution alienated the KMT, precisely what the Comintern
did not want. Russian and Chinese Communists alike got into convoluted theoretical discussions tryng to resolve
this matter, but the logic of the situation was perfectly obvious to the KMT. The KMT had always been a party of
the middle class, the socialist overtones of Sun Yat-sen’s program notwithstanding, and to it the Communist vision
of China’s future was frightening and repugnant. When the Russian Communist influence, together with the
burgeoning mass movement, became so powerful as to threaten to transform the KMT or destroy it, party
members had only 2 choices. They could yield in which case the party would cease to exist in the form and with the
aims it originally had, or they could fight. They chose to fight and Chiang Kai-shek led the attack.

To sum up, the KMT-CCP collaboration was a marriage of convenience, each needing but distrusting the other. The
KMT desired Soviet aid in "revitalizing the party, in developing a party army, and in carrying out the National
Revolution; it also aspired to the utilization of Communist ties with the workers, peasants, and the masses. On the
other hand, the Comintern and the CCP wanted to use the KMT base to expand their influence and eventually to
subvert it from within. In this tenuous relationship, remarks Hsu, cooperation lasted as long as it was in the
interest of both; each hoped to emerge as the victor when the other had outlived his usefulness. Sun's stature and
prestige were decisive factors in holding together the various elements, but once he passed away, divisive forces
were unleashed and loomed increasingly large on the horizon.

(Kindly give an introduction and conclusion according to the question asked)

1928-1949: Kiangsi Period: Yenan way-Policies; Peasant Nationalism; Communist Victory

The KMT-CCP coalition came to an abrupt and bloody end in 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek set his troops to closing
down left-wing organizations and to slaughtering Communists wherever they could be found. That attack

decimated CCP. The leadership was changed, party headquarters in Shanghai went underground and many

communists fled into the mountains and rugged areas along certain provincial borders. Here they reorganized their

forces and recruited peasant soldiers. The key men in the rejuvenation of CCP were Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh.

Late in 1927, Mao led a band of rugged followers to Chingkangshan where he was joined early in 1928 by Chu Teh,

a Communist military officer and his small following. This meeting marked the beginning of what came to be

known as the Mao-Chu leadership with Mao the political leader, and Chu in charge of military affairs. It was also

the beginning of a long period during which Mao and Chu developed political and military concepts and policies

that were at odds with the central party leadership and the Comintern that stood behind it.

James E Sheridan suggests that in the face of military onslaughts by Chiang and in the total context of warlordism,

Mao envisaged the unification, development and expansion of the armed units under various communist officers

into a Red Army and he and Chu worked hard to improve and enlarge their own forces. By the end of 1929 they

had developed the largest and best disciplined Communist army in China. Other commanders meanwhile

organized armed forces and established political control in other territorial bases. These areas were called rural

soviets. By 1931, around half a dozen major soviet areas had attained some permanence and stability as

independent political entities. In December representatives of a number of soviets and of Communist armies and

organizations, met in Juichin, Kiangsi and proclaimed the establishment of a new state - the Chinese Soviet

Republic (CSR) - embracing all the soviet areas. The representatives adopted the outline of a constitution, set up a

central government, and approved a political program, an agrarian policy and certain basic social and economic

policies. Mao Tse tung was elected the chairman of the Republic and Chuh the Chairman of the Military Council,

which in effect, meant Commander in chief of the Red armies.

The CSR, which may finally have contained a population of as many as 9 million people, was designed to create a

“democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants in the Soviet districts”. Landlords, gentry and others who

were thought to live by exploitation were shorn of political rights and their land was expropriated. Supreme

political authority was vested in a Congress of deputies representing the soviets and various organizations, but

between meetings real power was in the hands of a Central Executive Committee.

The CSR promulgated a highly advanced labor code and initially at least an extremely radical land law. The labor

law affected few people because there were few urban workers in Soviet areas; far more relevant was the agrarian

law, the culmination of a series of policy decisions taken by the party from the time it was forced into the
countryside. The agrarian law called for the confiscation of land belonging to landlords, gentry and others who

were said to live by exploitation. The seized land was to be redistributed to the poor and landless peasants and to

Red Army soldiers.

Amit Bhattacharyya propounds that the soviet that was set up on the Hunan-Kiangsi-Fukien bordering regions in

the late 1920s and early 1920s was important as a landmark not only in the history of Chinese Communism, but

also in the history of peasant movements. In fact the fusion of these 2 streams made possible the real agrarian

revolution which brought with it a new historical perspective. According to Jean Chesneaux, the earlier peasant

movements led by secret societies made not the political and social structure but the abuses of the old society

their targets of attack. The new movements, on the contrary, were aimed at uprooting the old society and creating

an entirely new one based on basic human values. It is also true at the same time that the theories about this

agrarian revolution did not emerge from within the villages, but from the towns ie through an external process.

No doubt the main force in the anti-KMT struggle was the peasantry; however this revolutionary movement fed by

a new ideology did not emanate from the peasantry. This Marxist theory arose in the urban areas and inspired the

peasantry into action. At the same time this ideology fought against old notions about equality, adventurism etc. In

the period of the Kiangsi soviet, the peasants fought under new organizations such as the Red army and CCP-

organizations which were fundamentally different from the old secret societies. The Chingkang soviet was the first

step towards an agrarian revolution and based basically on the support of the poor peasantry. The agrarian

revolution was truly the heir to the old-style peasant revolts and emerged from the same social roots. At the same

time, however, it was also fundamentally different from the earlier peasant movements.

In the face of a tight blockade by Chiang, the Red Army and all the Party’s administrative and political personnel-

perhaps 100,000 strong-started the extraordinary flight-the Long March-in October 1934. Meanwhile Mao was

elected Chairman both of the Polit Bureau of the CC of the CCP as also of the new Revolutionary Military Council at

the Tsunyi Conference in January 1935. The Communists were pursued by Chiang’s armies throughout the Long

March. Nonetheless, they reached the Shensi Soviet in northwestern China in October 1935.

From the mid-1930s onwards, remarks Sheridan, the argument that ‘Chinese should not fight Chinese, but should

join together to fight Japan’ started gaining momentum. The Communists declared their willingness to stop trying

to overthrow the KMT government, to re-designate Communist regions and armies as units under the national

government, to stop confiscation of landlord lands and to institute universal suffrage in their area. The KMT didn’t

respond formally to this proposal but issued a set of 4 demands that closely paralleled the Communist offer. On
the basis of these statements, negotiations between the 2 parties continued and culminated in the United Front

(UF) in 1937.

On July 7, 1937, the Japanese initiated local attack on Chinese near Peiping. The Sino-Japanese war had begun.

The Japanese offensive produced the most effective national unity that China had known in a generation, at least

temporarily. The Communists declared the Red Army to be part (8 th Route Army & New 4 th Army) of the
national

armed forces, under the ultimate command of Chiang and the CCP and KMT declared their intentions to work

together. Neither party publicly repudiated the UF until the end of the war in 1945, but actual cooperation

between them was minimal and short-lived. Mutual denunciations led ultimately to clashes between government

and Communist troops. Thus the 2 parties operated in different regions, followed different policies, and generally

functioned separately-particularly after troops of the 2 camps clashed in early 1941.

The period 1937-45 is known in the history of China as Yenan phase. It was the capital of Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia

base area. The importance that Yenan enjoyed was more than that of ChingKang-shan. It was not just a base area,

not just a new government or a new social system. It was in reality a model of future China based on anti-Jap war

of resistance, honesty and justice. From 1936, 1000s of youth and students braved their ways through hardships

and repressive measures from the KMT and reached Yenan to integrate with the struggle against the foreign

invaders.

In the new situation, demands of the agrarian revolution were temporarily suspended and replaced by the policy

of resistance of Japan and the policy of ‘national salvation’. In an essay entitled ‘On New Democracy’ (1940) which

is regarded as one of his main contributions to Marxism-Leninism. The theory behind new alliances was

propounded by Mao in that essay. It was based on the alliance of the ‘4 revolutionary classes’-the proletariat, the

poor and middle peasants, the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie. These 4 classes were associated

together in the same historical mission: to defeat imperialism by fighting the Japanese and to defeat feudalism. In

the ‘liberated areas’, local governments were set up on the ‘3-3-3’ principle comprising 3 Communists, 3 members

of the center parties which eventually included KMT and 3 non-party progressives. In the later period, the scope

for political alliance was extended further to include patriotic landlords who were encouraged to participate

actively in the struggle against Japan, despite their social position as the natural enemies of the peasants.

In the opinion of Mao, this New Democratic Revolution was essentially an agrarian revolution. However, though it

was a bourgeois democratic revolution, it was not the revolution of the old type. Chalmers Johnson in his book
Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power argued that the Chinese revolution was accomplished mainly due to

the rise of peasant nationalism against Japan. During the war against Japan patriotic motives replaced the aims of

the social struggles in the minds of the peasants that they were willing to renounce the struggle against landlords

and feudal order, and that it was ‘peasant nationalism’ that in the end defeated Japan and brought Communists to

power. According to Johnson when in the period of Kiangsi soviet the strategy of CCP was agrarian revolution, they

were defeated; and they could attain success only when they replaced this aim with the aim of a national

liberation war. Nonetheless, Bhattacharyya argues that policy could well be one component of victory in a

revolutionary war, but it could be only one of many other factors and not the only factor. Other key factors

encompassed of unity within the party, united program, political and military preparations, the strength of the

enemy, whether the objective situation stands for or against the revolutionaries etc. Besides these, success could

never be the pre-condition of struggle. In fact success comes through innumerable failures. Failures are the pillars

of success.

The French historian, Jean Chesneaux has opposed Johnson’s view. He admits that the agreement between KMT

and CCP meant applying a brake to the agrarian revolution in theory at least. Thus temporarily, for the sake of

unity against Japan, the CCP agreed to renounce their radical agrarian policy and confiscation of landlords’ holding

without compensation. But what is important is that in exchange, they obtained from the KMT a fundamental

concession-the right to preserve their own armed forces, the 8 th Route Army and New 4 th Army, to fight against

Japan. This meant in effect the right of peasants to keep their arms and the possibility of continuing at a later date

their struggle for land. John G Gurley expressed the same view in his book China’s Economy and the Maoist

Strategy. In his opinion the period of anti-Japanese resistance was not one of total retreat for the peasant

movement. In fact the policy of rent reduction and interest reduction was still pursued with the intention of

reducing the economic power of landlords.

According to Chesneaux, even more important is the fact that the development of armed resistance against Japan

led to a radical change in the political balance of power between the gentry and poor peasants. Taking arms

against Japan and contributing to the main war efforts, the peasants inevitably became confident of their own

strength. They knew it well that their arms would serve in the future to defend their class interests and not just

their country.

Bhattacharyya opines that the peasant society in Yenan was in one sense a military society, in which the armed

resistance was closely associated with the everyday life of everyone and in which the traditional aspects of peasant
life were adapted to military purposes. Moreover, it was also a democratic society. In the old society there is a

traditional opposition between the organs of power-military as well as civil. In the recent period with the onset of

revolutionary struggles, contradictions developed also between the members of the party and the ordinary people.

All these differences were reduced to the minimum in the newly democratic society. Yet another peculiarity of the

society was the equality between men and women. Women were made free from the clutches of patriarchy and

feudal fetters and they fought hand in hand with men against feudal social oppression and foreign aggression.

They participated actively in the work of peasant committees, in guerrilla operations, in the production campaigns

and formed women’s associations.

To add to these, a new kind of culture bloomed in the Yenan society which was fed by peasant tradition and at the

same time integrated with the revolutionary struggle. The society was based on such political and economic values

that were essentially different from those of the cities. Despite serious problems, it was never completely cut off

from the outside world. Mark Selden in his The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China writes that the “Yenan way

synthesizes the most significant and distinct features of the Chinese contribution to the practice of people’s war,

revolution and the transformation of peasant societies”.

Cheng feng, a cadre training and rectification movement which, according to Selden, marked a turning point in the

Chinese communist movement, was launched by Mao on February 1, 1942 and was followed for the next 2 years.

The main aim of Cheng feng was to build up a unified party committed to common ideas, goals and methods. It

was Marxist in character. But the stress had always been on the creative application of Marxism, and not the

mechanical implementation of it. John Rue in his book Mao Tse-tung in the Opposition wrote that one of Mao’s

major contributions to the development of a unified communist movement was his stress on organizational and

educational methods to resolve intra-party conflicts. Mao held that the cheng feng movement was a successful

method to resolve problems. In his article On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People, he wrote

that the method of ‘unity-criticism-unity’ was a democratic method of resolving contradictions among the people.

Richard Solomon in Chinese Communist Politics in Action said that intense criticism and self-criticism was an

effective method for breaking down traditional conception of leadership. The cheng feng was the first of a series of

assaults on these patterns of leadership.

Closely tied up with cheng feng was another movement known as hsia-hsiang or “to the village” movement which

began in July 1941 when cadres and students went to the countryside to assist the peasants at the time of the
harvesting season. In the spring of 1942, preparatory to their assignments in the countryside students and

intellectuals studied in Yenan. The main aim of this movement, according to Bhattacharyya, was to overcome the

mutual ignorance and prejudice of intellectuals and peasants through the sharing of a common experience.

According to Selden, the spirit of hsia-hsiang was idealistic. Through this experience, the privileged and educated

urban youth would realize that they had something to contribute meaningfully for the resolution of the problems

faced by the peasants.

In 1942, CCP made a frontal attack on rural poverty in the border region and in the next year it turned its attention

to economic matters in an all-out effort to strengthen the base areas. The new aim, known as the production war,

was the setting up of a self-sufficient and prosperous economy. During this period CCP adopted the policy of

“centralized leadership and dispersed management” which meant unified planning for development and the

establishment of broad economic goals in Yenan. The policy of the government was to inspire the people to fulfill

the economic priorities.

The political and economic innovations initiated in 1942 and 1943 were closely connected with the broad vision of

rural development. The main aim of CCP was the creation of local institutions by the people and for the people.

Known as the min-pan concept, it soon embraced the whole range of village life. Such transformation in the field

of education was central to the transformation in the countryside. The cheng feng movement not only brought

about the economic development in the remotest corners of the village, it also created a broad vision of man and

society in revolution. The principle of mass line was applied to explain the relationship between the leadership and

the people. The main aim of the party leadership was to sum up the opinion of the people, then go back to them

so that people could extend bold support, and in this way, form correct ideas and carry forward their struggles.

The mass line principle puts emphasis on the establishment of close ties between the leadership and the people

based on experience in guerilla struggles. Jack Gray noted the utility of this approach for forging national unity and

labor discipline and minimizing official corruption and rigidity.

The Communist Victory

On 1 st October 1949, Mao Tse-tung formally proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and

during the following few months the last pockets of KMT resistance were eliminated. In the meantime, Chiang and

his closest followers, with some 2 million troops and frightened citizens, had fled to Taiwan. The factors that

contributed to the victory of Communists in China will be elaborated in the following paragraphs.
The Communist achievement was first of all military; it is partly explicable in purely military terms. Communist

leadership was excellent from top to bottom. Chu Teh and Mao Tse-tung carefully dealt with military realities and

gave no weight to considerations of prestige and face that often guided Chiang Kai-shek. Mao developed a clear

and practical long range strategy that put into effect a fast mobile warfare that aimed at destruction of KMT

armies rather than at the seizure of territory. Chiang on the other hand, gave very little evidence of following a

strategic plan that the chief American military advisor asked if one even existed. Communist field commanders

were selected on merit, and given wide latitude to use their own judgment. They generally waged bold, aggressive,

sometimes brilliant campaigns. KMT generals, on the contrary, were chosen on the grounds of political loyalty to

Chiang and many who qualified on this basis demonstrated professional mediocrity or outright incompetence.

Time after time battles were lost because of the simple incompetence of government officers. Leadership of

government forces was further disrupted by frequent turnover of high officers and by the reluctance of generals to

cooperate with one another. Whereas the Communist armies were marked by continuity of command and a

willingness to work together for common goal. Not only incompetence but corruption too was rampant among

KMT generals.

With such leadership, opines Bhattacharyya, morale in the government armies was understandably at rock

bottom. Nor did the deplorable conditions that still prevailed in the army after the anti-Japanese war help. The

soldiers were inadequately paid and fed; training was poor to non-extent; discipline was bad and so on and so

forth. On top of that the Communists encouraged defections by indoctrinating captured troops with communist

peasant and national policies and then allowing them to return to their units if they wished. Some remained with

the Communists, but many who went back would never be implacable anti-Communist warriors.

Exactly opposite traits characterized the CCP forces. Soldiers were well cared for, well trained, thoroughly

indoctrinated about the need and purpose of the struggle. The intelligent Communist strategy of fighting only

when success seemed assured cultivated a feeling of victory among the Communist soldiers and stimulated a spirit

of boldness and offense that contrasted vividly with the defensive spirit of the government units. Morale in the

Communist units was high.

Scholars in the West have disagreed about the extent to which the conquest of China was a product of popular

support. Some have claimed that the Communists rode to power on the crest of a peasant revolution not unlike

those that led to the establishment of new dynasties in China since time immemorial. Others have argued that the

conquest can be assessed only in military terms that it was decided by military factors. The desire of many
Americans to view the civil war purely in military terms seems to derive partly from a post 1949 reluctance to

acknowledge that Communists can have genuine popular support.

Communist policies governing the anti-Japanese war bases have already been examined. To the peasants in those

regions, suggests Bhattacharyya, the wartime Communist administration was the best government they had ever

known. Their confidence was the unshakable base enjoyed by the Communists when the civil war began and it was

never seriously weakened throughout the years of struggle with the KMT. In the course of the civil war, agrarian

policies in the Communist base areas became increasingly radical. Shortly after the Japanese surrender the

Communist authorities reaffirmed the moderate wartime land policy of reduced rent and reduced interest-without

confiscation of land.

Without much question this revolutionary program commanded the enthusiasm of majority of peasants. They

already supported the CCP government because of the 8 or 9 years of honesty in the resistance areas, a support

manifested in their volunteering for Communist armies, helping in military transport and supply and fighting as

militia members. Mao’s land reform, coming as it did during the civil war, added to the peasant enthusiasm to the

Communist cause.

In sum the Communist victory was built on the basis of the political and military organization of the anti-Japanese

bases, and the legitimacy and moral authority derived from honest government and effective action against the

invader. Given the conditions that existed in China during the civil war, the question of military and popular

support are not separate issues, but 2 aspects of the same phenomenon infers Bhattacharyya.

The crucial and major element in popular support of the Communists was that rendered by the peasantry, for the

peasants constituted the vast majority of China’s population, filled the Communist armies and provided the food,

intelligence and various forms of help needed if the Red armies were to fight a guerilla war. Communist policies

and ideology, however, were not without attraction to the other chief classes in Chinese society: intellectuals,

students and middle class. Aside from the peasants, the intellectuals constituted the most important other class in

China. They had been fiercely anti-imperialistic, at least from the time of the 1919 May 4 th Movement. The
unequal

treaties were terminated in 1943, but the issue of imperialism remained very much alive during the civil war period

with the US considered the chief imperialist villain. That the US supported KMT subtly linked that party with Japan

and with imperialism generally. The intellectuals were impressed by the sincerity and firmness of the Communist

anti-imperialist attitude.
The KMT’s response to student movements and political agitations alienated the students from the government

and they turned towards the Communist alternative. Marxism-Leninism also had its attractions for Chinese

intellectuals. Indeed from the middle of 1920s, Marxist concepts and assumptions permeated the Chinese

intellectual world, influencing the thinking of many who were not Communists in any direct political sense.

Marxism purported to be scientific-“scientific socialism”-and that too was an attraction to those intellectuals who,

from the beginning of the 20 th century, had been enamored of science and viewed it as the essence of modernity.

Finally after the May 4 th movement many intellectuals had more or less come to accept the idea that China could

never be a strong power until its peasants were liberated from tradition and ignorance. Whereas Communism had

these various appeals for Chinese intellectuals, the KMT offered them little more than a return to a tradition that

they had long ago rejected as sterile irrelevant to the modern world. The most appealing aspects of KMT-its

supposed commitment to constitutionalism, democracy and westernization-were so flagrantly violated in practice

that they had little positive effect on intellectuals.

Little is known about the attitude of China’s small proletariat toward Communism. But it seems reasonable to

assume that the workers saw many advantages in the ascendency of a party that claimed to put the interests of

the proletariat before all others. The middle class in the cities had ties with the student-intellectual class and

shared some of their views although generally they assumed a fairly moderate stance. The corruption and

incompetence of KMT rule convinced many of them that Chiang and his party were hopeless. To sum up,

Communist rule, then, seemed to promise something for everyone, the best of the real available alternatives.