Chinese Society GEE 2190K Instructor: Ho-fung Hung Week 3. China in Revolution

1. Chinese Society GEE 2190K Instructor: Ho-fung Hung Week 3. China in Revolution

2. Collapse of the Qing empire and the warlord period • Nominally, the Qing government was overthrown in 1911 by a group of revolutionary intellectuals led by Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙/孫中山). • Actually, the Qing government was toppled by regional warlords who claimed to echo Sun’s revolutionary call. • After the revolution, the warlords （軍閥）became autonomous powers, fighting with one another.

5. Rise of Communism • The Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1921 in Shanghai. This was a result of the impact of the Russia’s October Revolution in 1917 and the May-fourth movements （五四運動）in 1919.

6. In 1924, Sun Yat-sen adopted a united front policy, which forged a revolutionary alliance between the Guomindang （國民黨）and the Communist. The two parties joined hands to launch the Northward expedition (北伐1926-28) . • The Northward expedition successfully ended warlordism in China. This put most of China under Guomindang rule. Nanjing became capital of Republican China in 1928.

8. Near the end of Northward expedition, Jiang Jieshi (蔣介石), an emerging military leader within the Guomindang, abandoned Sun’s (who died in 1925) united front policy. He took control of the Guomindang through a coup (政變) and initiated a massacre of Communists in major cities. • After the massacre, Communist leaders, including the young Mao Zedong（毛澤東）, developed the strategy of leaving the big cities and establishing rural Soviet （蘇維埃）in inland provinces, where Guomindang control was weak.

9. In 1928-34, Mao Zedong established Soviet in the impoverished Jiangxi mountainous areas one after the other. The Chinese Communist movement changed from an urban movement based on industrial workers into a rural movement based on the support of the peasants.

10. The peasants supported the Communists because the latter: • Implemented land reform to redistribute confiscated land (from local bullies, notorious landlord, etc.) to landless, marginal peasants. • Established peasant associations to promote self-governance of the peasants. • Promoted voluntary co-operatives (合作社) to facilitate investment in agricultural production and construction of public facilities. • Well disciplined Red Army and clean Soviet government.

11. Strong peasant support led to rapid expansion of Red Base area in Jiangxi and expansion of the Red Army – Red Army as “peasants in uniform.”

12. The Long March • When military pressure from the Republican government intensified in 1930-34, the Communists were forced to leave the Red Base area and moved their base from central-southern China to the Northwest area, which was out of Guomindang’s reach. • A new revolutionary base was established in Yan’an (延安).

14. In Yan’an, the Communists continued its policy of modest land reform and promoting peasant self-governance and co-operatives. They also began to experiment on the system of command economy.

15. The Communists also gathered increasing national support because of its sturdy anti-Japanese stance. It was in contrast to the Guomindang, which was much more interested in crushing the Communists than resisting Japanese invasion.

16. In 1936, a second united front between the Communists and the Guomindang was established on the ground of united resistance against the Japanese. • After the beginning of full-fledged invasion of China by Japan, the Guomindang government moved from Nanjing to Chongqing (重慶) in the Southwest interior of China, while the Communist army applied guerrilla tactics to check the growth of Japan’s territory in China.

19. After Japan surrendered in 1945, Japan’s territory in China’s Northeast was taken by the Soviet Union. The Communist army then advanced to the Northeast rapidly to take over the industrial facilities and military hardware left by the Japanese there. Civil war broke out between the Communist and the Guomindang. • In a matter of a few years, the Communist defeated the Guomindang. The Communist won not only by its military advantage but also by the support of urban residents who resented the corrupted Guomindang rule.

20. Years of Recovery, 1950-55 • In the first few years of the People’s Republic of China (中華人民共和國), China’s economy recovered rapidly. • In the countryside, the Communist government carried out nation-wide land reform. Nation-wide campaign for the establishment of rural co-operatives was also launched. These policies were continuations of the policies in the Red Base Area prior to 1949.

21. In the urban area, nationalization of private industry began. Industrialists were asked (actually forced) to transfer their control of their enterprises to the government. In return, they could get a regular interest income (based on estimation of the enterprises’ value) from the government. • By 1955, land reform had been completed and most industrial establishments had been nationalized.

23. Radical Collectivization after 1955 • In 1950-1955, agriculture output increased considerably, creating increasing food surplus to support the expanding industrial economy in the cities. • In the mid-1950s, the growth rate of agricultural production and the growth rate of the national economy at large diminished.

24. The government’s remedy for this problem was to impose radical collectivization in the countryside. Peasants were mobilized to join people’s communes (人民公社). • The communes were directly under the control of the state. Private commercial activities in the village were banned. • The commune system was supposed to increase agricultural production through the “economy of scale” （規模經濟），and to enable the government to purchase agricultural products at extremely low prices.

25. Hence, people’s communes are seen by some scholars as institutions that helped the government extract resources from the countryside to support rapid industrialization in urban areas. • They are seen by others as providers of social services to the rural area. • The collectivization movement peaked in the Great Leap Forward (大躍進) in 1958.

26. A rigid command economy was in place at the end of the 1950s. Its radicalism and rigidity turned out to be a disaster that contributed in part to the great famine of 1959-62.

28. Partial revival of the private sector after 1960 • In 1960, Mao Zedong admitted that he made a huge mistake by pushing for radical collectivization. He was forced to step aside in the leadership. • After 1960, Liu Shaqi (劉少奇), with the assistance of Deng Xiaoping, was in charge of the economy. • Though the system of people’s commune remained intact, peasants were allowed to engage in sideline productions and limited commercial activities under Liu Shaoqi. Market towns revived in the rural area and the rural economy recovered rapidly.

29. Fluctuation of policy throughout the 1950s and early 1960s did not affect urban areas much, as they had been under a strict system of command economy grounded on state-ownedindustry ever since the nationalization process in the early 1950s. • Income gap between urban and rural area persisted, though it decreased slightly over the Mao’s period

31. The era of Cultural Revolution, 1966-76 • In 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命), during which Liu Shaoqi was attacked as a “capitalist roader” and ousted. Mao and a group of ultra-leftists （極左派）took control of the government again, and reversed the market reform in the early 1960s. • Mao mobilized the youngsters into red guards (紅衛兵), using them to crush Liu Shaoqi and his supporters in the Communist Party.

32. Mao swimming across the Yangzi River, showing his health and initiating the Cultural Revolution

33. Red guards from all over the countries rallied at the Tiannanmen square.

34. Fluctuation of policy continued. In the early 1970s, pragmatic leaders in the Party resurged and limited market reform revived. But the reform was crushed again when the pragmatists were pushed aside in 1976. • These vicissitudes of policy were results of unpredictable power struggle within the Party.

35. After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, market reformers seized the Party’s leadership through a coup. The ultra-leftists (led by the Gang of Four) were marginalized. • This dramatic political development paved the way for the full-fledged market reform in the 1980s.