Historical Analysis: The Chinese Revolution

The communist revolution in China encompassed decades worth of grief and chaos, both before and after Mao declared The People’s Republic of China in 1949. China, with over 3,500 years of history, had much to build on when revolutionary fervor to overthrow the Qing Dynasty was proliferating Chinese culture in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. When the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing Dynasty in 1911, China ended over 2,000 years of imperial rule and began an internal and external battle for supremacy that would comprise several opposition movements and notable leaders. In the end, it was the communist revolution in China that incorporated a successful strategy and took advantage of a vulnerable state to lead China into a new era that still defines Chinese society today.

Going by traditional Chinese terms, Chinese society prior to the Xinhai revolution was junxian, which is a centralized, free-market system with a civilian outlook that focuses on secularism (Schrecker, 4–5). The junxian system lasted in China for 1,000 years until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Prior to the Revolution of 1911, widespread poverty, social injustice and immorality served the basis for rebellion in China (Schrecker, 164). This caused many opposition movements before the fall of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, with the first major movement being the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864). The motivations for the Taiping rebellion, like the other major Chinese rebellions of the eighteenth century, centered around “increasing poverty, natural disaster, alienation, frustrated ambition and a government too weak and corrupt to tackle the problems effectively (Schrecker, 122).” The Taiping Rebellion, however, was progressive in a couple of major areas that would be used in key future revolutions, including the one the Xinhai Revolution. For one, the Taiping Rebellion was the first revolution in China to incorporate major elements from the West (Schrecker, 126). This included using the West’s new scientific and industrial innovations to improve China’s military power and economy. Also, the Western belief in transcendent progress was a refreshing sentiment to disillusioned Chinese revolutionaries who were growing old of their own society. A precedent to the Communist revolution in China also occurred with the Taiping Rebellion. The Taiping’s emphasis on egalitarian ideas, including communal ownership of property, were a precursor to for some of communism’s ideals in China (Schrecker, 130). Ultimately, the success of the Taiping’s cannot be overstated in Chinese revolutionary history. The Taiping’s captured Nanjing, the second most important city in the country, and captured six hundred cities throughout the rebellion, while also promoting ideas that would become paramount to the future revolutions in China.

Other movements prior to the Xinhai Revolution also served crucial roles in developing China’s revolutionary fervor. The Self Strengthening Movement (1870–1880s), the Qingyi Movement and the Reform Movement of 1898 were significant in attracting the elites of Chinese society to the revolutionary cause. It’s been set that prior to the Revolution of 1911, China was increasingly impoverished with a corrupt and weak government who were gradually losing the trust of a spiritless populace. This internal strife was also the result of imperialism, specifically Western imperialism, which bore a heavy burden on the country in the waning years of the Qing and played a monumental role in increasing revolutionary zeal in China.

The most damaging result of imperialism stemmed from the unequal treaties imposed after the Opium Wars in the mid-nineteenth century. It was the consequences of the Opium Wars that would “establish the basis for Western power in China for the next one hundred years (Schrecker, 115).” China historically had an unbalanced trade system with Western countries and wanted supervised control over trade, which lead to the Canton System where trade was limited to one port and foreigners were not allowed to travel freely in the country. During the eighteenth century, a growing disrespect began to arise from Western countries against China, and there was a belief among the West that China was a stagnant country stuck in old traditions and their trade laws did not have to be obeyed (Schrecker, 116). By the late 1830s, opium’s presence was bourgeoning in China, and the government was increasingly irritated with England’s smuggling of the drug into China. This led to two separate opium wars between 1839–1860 that served the basis for China’s precarious position in international relations. After the Opium Wars, China opened four more ports with no restrictions, Hong Kong was ceded to England, opium was legalized and Western countries were able to force China into establishing “concession” areas that gave foreign control to key parts Chinese cities (Schrecker, 121–122).

Western imperialism continued to plague Chinese society and by the turn of nineteenth century, China was running out of options. Distressed with domestic and foreign exploitation, the Boxer Rebellion rose up to “Support the Qing and expel the foreigners (Schrecker, 162).” While the Boxer Rebellion did prove that China could put up a fight against foreign intervention, the consequences of the rebellion were a catastrophe for China. Russia remained in control of Manchuria, Beijing was under semi occupation and many high officials were executed for their roles in the failed rebellion. The results of the Boxer Rebellion signaled the end for the Qing Dynasty, and throughout the next decade, support from all classes of society for a revolution grew stronger and stronger. It was clear that China was on the precipice of a revolution that would transform the country into a new era. That new era for China would come in 1911, when the Qing Dynasty was finally overthrown by the Xinhai Revolution.

Amid all the movements that rose up in China prior to the Qing falling from power, it was the Republican Revolution that was most directly responsible for the fall of the Qing (Lazzerini, 10). The Republican revolution in China lasted from 1890 to the late 1920s and was led by Sun Yat-sen, an influential Chinese philosopher and revolutionary. The Republican movement attracted many different sectors of society, such as modern, Western-educated students, intellectuals with no ties to traditional Chinese society, a budding urban middle class, and some moderately-educated peasants. The ideology of Sun and also the Republican revolution can be summed up by Sun’s “Three People’s Principles,” which were nationalism, democracy and people’s livelihood (Schrecker, (170–171). Nationalism, in Sun’s view, meant to unite all Chinese people to resist foreign exploitation. Sun advocated for the principle of democracy so that China could become a republic with a free and open political life. People’s livelihood chiefly meant economic equality and a redistribution of wealth for China. These sentiments were instrumental in garnering support for the Republican Revolution and elevating Sun to become the first provincial president of the Republic of China after the Revolution of 1911.

After the Republican Revolution, developments in China over the next decade would lead to another key movement that would put in place the ruling party for the next two decades, the Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek. Yuan Shikai took over as the leader of the Republic of China in 1912 and began to state his aspiration to create a new dynasty with himself at the top. This led to an intense opposition toward Shikai, and he was ousted as president in 1916. The removal of Shikai led directly into China’s Warlord Era, which sent China into a disarray of political chaos for the next 12 years. With no real central government, China became controlled by local warlords with no practical long-term goals until the Nationalists took power in 1928. The consequences of World War II also proved that China still suffered from the ills of imperialism. After World War II, Western imperialism continued to have a strong influence on China, especially with the transferal of Germany’s Shandong holdings to Japan, which caused vigorous uproar from Chinese citizens (Lazzerini, 13).

These circumstances led to the Nationalist Revolution in China, which stemmed from a political reorganization, influenced by the Soviet Union, of Sun’s Kuomintang party in the 1920s. Sun’s Three Principles were modified to stress anti-imperialism, authoritarianism and anti-capitalism, which came to form the ideology of the Nationalist movement and guided their actions as they ostensibly became China’s most powerful party until the 1940s (Lazzerini, 14–15). This power became realized in 1928, when the Nationalists took Beijing, put an end to the Warlord Era and established the seat of government of the Republic of China at Nanking that was legitimized by recognition from foreign powers. The next decade or so is commonly called the “Nanking Decade” (Schrecker, 199).

Opposing the Nationalists was the Chinese Communist Party, which was organized in 1921 by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu with a Marxist ideology (Schrecker, 189). As time passed, the CCP shifted to Marxism-Leninism to shape the party’s ideology, with its emphasis on egalitarianism and nationalistic sentiment. Although the CCP formed in 1921, the party attained popular support under Mao Zedong in the mid 1920s. This was because Mao used his own farming background to develop a strategy that served as a key reason why the Communist’s prevailed against Kai-Shek and the Nationalists. The strategy involved farmers playing an essential role in the revolution, rather than just the urban working class, which is who the revolution was first centered around (Schrecker, 202–203).

While the Communists were continuing to congregate, Kai-Shek understood the threat that the Communists posed to his power and he carried out hostile measures during the 1930s to assert his authority over China. The results were dire for the CCP as they continued to try to spread their influence throughout the country. The CCP declared a new state in 1931, called the Chinese Soviet Republic, where they organized an administrative structure and developed China’s Red Army, which served as their main military power. Kai-Shek, sensing the Communists’ increasing notoriety within the country, launched Extermination Campaigns that culminated in the famous Long March of 1934–1935. The march was an arduous, 6,000-mile trek that saw only 20,000 of the 100,000 Communists who started the march survive (Schrecker, 204). Although Chinese communists revere the Long March as a heroic undertaking, the reality was that Mao and his followers were belittled by the time they settled on their new communist base in Yenan.

Amid the internal battle between the Nationalists and the Communists, it was the external battle waged with Japan that gradually shifted the power of the country from the former to the latter. While Kai-Shek was focused on exterminating the Communists during the early 1930s, Japan was attempting to expand its influence in China. Japan invaded China in 1931 and took Manchuria, renaming it Manchukuo. Many consider this the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, but it wasn’t until 1937 when total war broke out between the two countries. The war started out as a gruesome affair for China and forced the Nationalists and the Communists to unify against Japan, although their alliance was unstable from the start. What this alliance meant for the Communists in the short-term was a reprieve from Nationalist aggression while they continued to establish themselves at their bases. It was the long-term affect, however, that proved to be the deciding factor in why the Communists were able to take power in China.

The Second Sino-Japanese War, and the results of World War II, did much to sway popular support toward the Communists’ cause in China. The CCP’s revolutionary outlook stretched throughout northern China due to various activities launched by the Communists that “mobilized the nationalism of the people, gave them hope, and, of course, brought them to support the Communist cause (Schrecker, 206).” One of the major actions undertaken by the Communists during the war was the group’s use of a guerilla movement to fend off the Japanese from taking their local territories. The subsequent strengthening of the Red Army for guerilla work in rural areas helped to further the notion that the Communists were more apt to fight with the Japanese than the Nationalists were, even if that wasn’t exactly the case. The Communists also worked to build a government that was inclusive to farmers, the central figure in the communist revolution, but also elites and intellectuals, which helped extend communist principles to different sectors of society. Lastly, the Communists started the process of setting up a socialist economic system that included a fair distribution of goods and a moderate system of land distribution (Schrecker, 207). These developments proved to be instrumental in rallying support for the CCP in China.

At the same time, the KMT government “grew pessimistic, cynical and corrupt” during the conflict with Japan (Schrecker, 205). A massive inflation, pervasive corruption and Kai-Shek’s reliance on foreign powers created the impression that the Kuomintang was weakening at the same time the Communists were strengthening their party. While Kai-Shek made strides in garnering the respect of foreign powers during World War II, it was evident at the end of the war that the power in China was shifting to the Communists’ side. The Communists had controlled over half the country after the war, with a strong army and widespread support among the Chinese population. The Nationalists were stuck in the west of China, with a diminishing and corrupt military that was quickly losing the support of its followers. The two parties fought for control over the country after World War II, but it was only a matter of time before the CCP completed a successful communist overthrow of China. The Communists officially came into power in 1949, when Kai-Shek’s regime fled to Taiwan and Mao officially declared the People’s Republic of China, ushering in a new era for the country.

Mao and the Communists spent so much time planning on how they would come to power that when they actually got to the top, they were behind on implementing policies that would turn China into a successful communist state. From 1950–1953, the CCP enacted several policies to transform China into a socialist society as swiftly as possible. Some of these policies included the land reform movement (1950–1952), the campaign for “implementation of the marriage law,” the “thought reform” campaigns and the five-anti” campaign (Lazzerini, 22–23). These policies did much to revive China’s economy while also strengthening the CCP’s control over it. With China’s economic status drastically improved, Mao enacted the First Five Year Plan (FFYP) to follow in the footsteps of the Soviet Union in rapidly industrializing the country. This involved emphasizing industry over agriculture, large enterprises over small, more centralized planning and collectivizing the peasantry to finance the new model of economic development (Lazzerini, 23). The Soviet Union provided aid to China in its pursuit to rapidly industrialize, and the Chinese population was generally motivated to increase production and improve their current lifestyle at the beginning of the plan. Eventually, however, the FFYP created an ideological divide in the CCP over the handling of the Soviet-inspired policy to industrialize. This caused Mao, representing the leftists in the CCP, to launch “anti-rightist” campaigns and arguably led to Mao’s must dictatorial policy during his tenure, the Great Leap Forward (Lazzerini, 24–25).

The Great Leap Forward was a policy introduced in China to replace the Stalinist model for industrialization and was intended to “achieve more rapid growth and more worker and peasant participation in decision-making processes (Defronzo, 102).” Initiated in 1958, the Great Leap intended to combine heavy and light industry with agriculture, create local industries in rural locations, employ women and the unemployed to make up for a lack of equipment, decentralize authority to increase public participation in policymaking and replace cooperative farms with communes. In shifting from the USSR’s model for industrialization, Mao and the CCP angered the Soviet Union under Premier Krushchev. The Soviets consequently cut off assistance to China and sparked tensions between the two countries that would boil over for the next two decades. The lack of production from rural factories and agriculture, coupled with food shortages and poor weather conditions that resulted in a population loss between 20–25 million, led to the Great Leap being overhauled with a more centralized system in the early 1960s (Defronzo, 103). It’s also the reason the Great Leap is looked at as a tragic and futile attempt at developing all aspects of Chinese life. Not only did the policy fail to do this, but it also created hostilities with the Soviets and formed internal factions in the CCP that would come to define the country for decades to come.

After the immense failure of the Great Leap, Mao relinquished his position as head of the Chinese state in 1959, but his influence remained profound, and the remaining years under Mao’s authority would be equally as dire for China as the years before it. After the Great Leap ended in 1961, China began to make incremental progress of redressing the ills of Mao’s policies under Li Shaoqi, who now managed the day-to-day activities for China. Agriculture was made a high priority, with farmers now receiving pay based on work and extreme collectivization put to an end (Schrecker, 227). A movement also began in the early 1960s where open debate was more encouraged, although the CCP was still very much dogmatic in its approach. Despite some advances after the Great Leap ended, Mao was discouraged by the fact that the socialist society he envisioned at the start of the communist revolution hadn’t come to fruition. With his health declining, Mao decided to use his influence to enact the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966 that would serve as his last attempt at formulating the optimal socialist society for China. The Cultural Revolution was Mao’s initiative to free the country from the evils of the Chinese past and reverse recent shortcomings he sensed from the Marxism-Leninism ideology. To carry out the revolution, Mao centered the movement around the Chinese youth, much like the May 4thMovement in the early nineteenth century (Schrecker, 228). One of the early signs of the Cultural Revolution was the assembly of the Red Guards, a group of young people tasked with attacking and deposing of anybody who represented capitalistic sentiments. Because Mao began to oppose the original ideology that defined the communist revolution in China, he created a new philosophy centered around his own views. He expanded on his newfound thoughts in a book that is referred to as Mao’s “Little Red Book,” a defining symbol of the Cultural Revolution (Schrecker, 229). With this new Maoist philosophy in place, schools were shut down across the country because Mao’s new way of thinking found no need in learning about China’s history. On top of these new developments, beatings, killings and abuse proliferated society during the Cultural Revolution, with over half a million people dying and even more sent to prison or concentration camps (Schrecker, 230). The Cultural Revolution would be in place until 1976, when Mao and some of his close supporters either died or were imprisoned for past offenses.

Mao’s death signaled a new era for the country who had been under Mao’s dictatorial leadership since the CCP took power in 1949. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping took over the power of the CCP and began to modernize China’s economy. Not much changed on the political side of things under Deng’s regime. The government remained a dictatorship and any movement for democracy in China was quickly repressed. Economically, however, China began to form the basis for becoming the economic superpower it is today. China instituted policies that created more foreign trade, allowed for small, privately-owned businesses and emphasized the production of consumer goods, all of which played a major part in developing China’s economy (Schrecker, 233–234). Population control and foreign investment also played crucial roles in China’s economic development in the 1980s and 1990s.

The CCP remains in power today, albeit, under different circumstances than when the party first came into control. While China’s economy ranks near the top in the world rankings, the government still controls much of Chinese society. The CCP’s control of the media and the internet serves as an example of authoritarian directives deriving from the top of the party. The imprisonment and castigation of the Uyghur Muslim community displays modern dictatorial tendencies under President Xi Jinping. These examples prove that authoritarianism remains in communist China, and dictatorship remains the nation’s biggest problem. If the current status of Chinese society follows the path of China’s history, the communist regime may be closer to the end than the beginning (Schrecker, 252–253).

The Chinese Communist Revolution proved successful in its ultimate rise to power in 1949. The CCP devised a strategy under Mao to center the revolution on China’s farmers and took advantage of a post-WWII society that was heavily in favor of the communist revolution. While the CCP achieved its goal of rising to power, the policies carried out by Mao ended up in tragedy and he ultimately failed in crafting his ideal communist state. Deng Xiaoping, while maintaining much of Mao’s despotic approach, grew China’s economy in a rapid and vast way. This growth continued through the 2000s, and China currently stands as one of the top two economies in the world. However, the CCP retains a major grip on the Chinese population and demonstrations, like the democracy movement in Hong Kong recently, have been harshly repressed by police forces. This brings many questions for the future of communist China. Unless China undergoes a rapid ideological change, there is a real possibility of Chinese citizens eventually rallying to form a revolutionary movement that could force the communist regime to make concessions or even step down. Only time will tell, but with China’s extensive revolutionary history, the possibility remains that another Chinese revolution could be coming sooner rather than later.

Sources:

John Schrecker, 2004. The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective (Praeger)

Edward Lazzerini. 1999. The Chinese Revolution. (Greenwood)

DEFRONZO, JAMES. REVOLUTIONS AND REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS. Fifth ed., ROUTLEDGE, 2019, pp. 102–103.

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