IB - Topics in 20th Century History

The Great Chinese Revolution Stage 1: New

Democratic Revolution 1911-1949

Big Ideas on Stage One of the Revolution in China

1) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) emerged after the failure of the Chinese to
regain their territory during the Versailles Peace Conference (which led to the May 4th
Movement).
2) The internationalism of Communist theory was in direct contradiction to the
nationalism of the Chinese.
3) Mao Zedong embraced the idea of Rural Communism originally developed by Li
Dazhao.
4) Events in China were dramatically affected by the Second World War in Asia and the
tensions of the early Cold War.
5) The Chinese Civil War (1946-1949) was both lost by the GMD and won by the CCP.
6) Mao Zedong viewed his victory in October of 1949 as the completion of the first step
in a two-step process to transform Chinese society.

IB Topics in 20th Century History

The Great Chinese Revolution Stage 1: New Democratic Revolution
This emphasis on carrying the revolution through to the end was a long-standing preoccupation in Maos thinking. As
early as 1939 and 1940, Mao stated in The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party and On New Democracy,
two of his most important works, that the Chinese Communist revolution would be divided into two stages: the stage of new
democratic revolution, and the stage of socialist revolution. During the first stage, the revolution had to overthrow the rule
of the bureaucratic-capitalist class, wipe out foreign influence, eliminate remnants of
Chen Jian
feudal tradition, and establish a Communist-led regime that would unify all patriotic
social classes in China. The second stage of the revolution would transform the
Chinese society. including the economic system, political structure, and social life,
under the leadership of the Communist regime. The transformation would lay the
foundation of Chinas transition into a socialist and later Communist society. In
Maos view, the two stages in the revolution were closely linked: without the first
stage, the second stage of the revolution would be impossible; without the second
stage, the first stage of the revolution would become meaningless. When Mao called
for carrying the revolution through to the end in 1949, he was thinking about
leading the revolution into its necessary second stage.1

Part 1 The Origins of the Chinese Communist Party and the

Leadership of Mao Zedong
1) The Historiography of the Origins of the Chinese Communist Party
One of the problems historians must deal with is the conflict in specialties. Historical study is divided into specialties:
time periods, regions, and topics. At times these areas begin to overlap and create conflict. An example of this is the study of
the Chinese Civil War and the rise of the Chinese Communist Party. The 1911-1949 period has traditionally fallen within the
purview of the China studies community (also known as area studies). The China studies community works on placing the
rise of the CCP into the context of broader Chinese history with emphasis on the continuity of Chinese culture, language and
traditions. The problem is that outside forces played a significant role in the development of the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) during the 1911-1949 period. The end of World War II, the power competition between the United States and the
Soviet Union, and the role of the United States in Chinese affairs all of these were significant forces in the outcome of the
Chinese Civil War. With these forces come advocates of the
historical specialties that deal with each area, and conflict arises
Karl Marx
over what forces played what role. Students of this period of
Chinese history must be willing to look across areas of specialty to
make judgments and develop arguments. They must also be aware
of
the limitations that specialty places on authors.
a)

The Nature of Marxism

Despite the breadth and depth of the writings of Karl

Marx and Vladimir Lenin, the crux of communist ideology can
be reduced to four essential tenets (and one corollary):
1. Communism claims to be universal: the main factor
underlying all human behavior everywhere is the
individuals relationship to the means of economic
production. Class interests, therefore, supercede national,
ethnic, religious, and all other interests. The universal
concern of all workers regardless of nationality is known
proletarian internationalism.
2. The capitalist system is pernicious and leads to the
exploitation of the working class.

as

Chen Jian, Chinas Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation. Columbia University Press, 1994, Page 14. Chen Jian is C.
K. Yen Professor of Chinese-American Relations at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, Professor of History at the University of
Virginia, and Zijiang Visiting Professor at East China Normal University, P.R.C. Professor Chens work tries to place the events of the Cold War in Asia
within the context of Chinas domestic framework. Professor Chen is a native of mainland China where he experienced the Cultural Revolution

3. Because of its inherent defects, capitalism, like feudalism before it, will inevitably give way through violent
revolution to the power of the working class. Marx and Lenin believed that history verified this claim.
4. Imperialism, the final phase of capitalism, leads inevitably to war and revolution. The failure of the universal
proletarian revolution to materialize at the same time as the Russian Revolution near the conclusion of the First
World War led to a corollary:
International relations are a reflection of the class struggle in which socialist countries represent the working
class and capitalist countries represent the exploiting class. Socialist internationalism referred to the common
class interests of all socialist states; these concerns trumped other interests, at least in the minds of Soviet
leaders.2
b) Sinocentrism
After the establishment of the first Chinese empire, there existed a Chinese world order that was described by scholars
as "a Sinocentric hierarchy." The "International" relations of China with surrounding areas, and with non-Chinese
peoples generally, were colored by the concept of Sinocentrism and the assumption of Chinese superiority. Sinocentrism
and the Chinese world order was a set of ideas and practices developed and perpetuated by the rulers of China over many
centuries. In an abbreviated and somewhat oversimplified form, Sinocentrism and the traditional Chinese world order
were portrayed in Chinese classics by a framework of the following four dimensions.
First, the Chinese world system was a closed system with a limited understanding of China's place in the world.
China's self-sufficiency and imperial position was never seriously challenged from the outside world. Until modern
times the Chinese empire was able to maintain the Chinese ethnocentric worldview and did not care whether people
outside the Sinitic world knew about China.
Second, the Chinese world order was hierarchical and anti-egalitarian.
Third, China's centrality in the world order was a function of her civilization and virtue, particularly the virtue of
China's ruler, although military means were used constantly to defend as well as to expand the Chinese empire. Lucian
Pye's study of Asian power indicates that "the Chinese with all their Confucianism, created an elaborate intellectual
structure of an ethical order which all enlightened peoples were expected to acknowledge and respect." In the Chinese
world order, a hierarchical power relationship, therefore, was by definition more "moral" than in the West.
And finally, international society was the extension of internal society. As John K. Fairbank put it, "The Chinese
tended to think of their foreign relations as giving an expression externally to the same principles of social and political
order that were manifested internally within the Chinese state and society.3
c)

The Appeal of Marxism to the 3rd World Post-Imperialism

[N]ationalism is a pathological form of self-protective resistance [by] groups which feel humiliated or oppressed,
to whom nationalism represents the straightening of bent backs, the recovery of a freedom they may never have had (it is
all a matter of ideas in mens heads), revenge for their insulted humanity. It animates revolts for it expresses the
inflamed desire of the insufficiently regarded to count for something among the cultures of the world.4
d) The Contradiction The Problem of the Appeal of Marx in the Imperialized World
i) Is Communism the End (The Goal) Internationalism
ii) Is Communism a Means to an End (The Tool) Nationalism
e)

Domestic Issues (Internal Policy): From inside China: Understanding Mao Zedong (Mao Thought vs. Maoism)
i) Blueprint or an Approach
Whether you see Mao as a Marxist or not essentially depends on your view of Marx and his works was it a
blueprint, or merely an approach?5
ii) Mao the Marxist (Mao Thought)
(1) Maos Contribution to Marxism

Glenn R. Chafetz, Did Ideology Plan an Important Role in the U.S.-Soviet Conflict?, History in Dispute, Farmington Hills, Mi.: St. James Press, 2000
(Page 149).
3
Shuisheng Zhao, Power Competition in East Asia: From the Old Chinese World Order to Post-Cold War Regional Multipolarity. St. Martin's Press: New
York, 1997, (Pages 16-18).
4
Sir Isaiah Berlin quoted in James G. Blight & Philip Brenner, Sad and Luminous Days: Cubas Struggle with Superpowers after the Missile Crisis.
Rowman & Littlefield, 2002 (Page 115). Though Blight & Brenner were writing regarding Cuba, the ideas of Berlin certainly express the frustrations and
aspirations of the Chinese people.
5
Shaun Breslin, Mao. Longman 1998. (Page 67)

Maos creation of thought is a continuing process without any foreseeable conclusion. Unification of theory
and practice continues, adding to thought. The new revolutionary generation is instructed to do more than read
the thought of Mao Tse-tung. It is urged to use it as a model for combining theory and practice, and so develop
an outlook in which ideology becomes a central part of everyday living and working.
THE PROCESS OF CREATING IDEOLOGY
Theory + Practice
Truth of Marxism-Leninism + Practice of Revolution
and construction of China

Thought
The Thought of
Mao Tse-tung

From all this we can conclude that, although Mao has not created pure ideology, he has again been credited
with having created a practical ideology: this is his main contribution to the world.6
(2) Marx is more than economics
Those who see Mao as being part of the Marxist tradition do not dispute these major differences between
Mao and Marx, and even between Mao and Lenin. However, they argue that the Maoists miss the point about
Marx and Marxism, even if they are correct about Mao. Marx, they argue, was less of an economic determinist
than they suggest, and that he did discuss the importance of willed cultural change. Reducing Marx to a
simple economic determinist is over-simplifying the thousands of words that Marx wrote. 7
iii) Maoism (A Distinct Theory) Not Marxism
At the risk of oversimplification, those who argue that Mao did create a new distinct ideology argue three main
points. The first, perhaps least significant, revolves around the class-based nature of Maos revolutionary strategy.
With no real proletariat to speak of, and no bourgeois revolution in place, then how could you get a proletarian
revolution? Second, can a peasant-based revolution be Marxist?
The third point is the most substantial and pertinent. By defining class more as a state of mind than as an
economically determined state, surely Mao moved too far away from Marxs original work? Mao then is a
voluntarist, who turns Marx on his head by emphasizing the primacy of willed social change as a precondition for
economic change.8
iv) The Significance of the Mao Thought vs. Maoism Debate
The debate will continue. But does it matter? Does the peasant dying from starvation at the end of the Great
Leap Forward accept his fate more readily because it was a Marxist Policy which led to his fate? The answer to the
second question is no, but the answer to the first question is a resounding yes for three main reasons.
First, Mao was convinced he was right and convinced that his was the correct Marxist approach. While it is
true that Mao wanted power, he did not want power for its own sake. He was also motivated by ensuring that his
correct Marxist ideas were followed, and if people got in the way and relied on inappropriate Russian models, then
those obstacles had to be removed.
Second, and following from above, we return to the importance of Sino-Soviet relations, and Maos attitude
towards Soviet Marxism. In the international communist debate, it was important for Mao to ascertain that his ideas
were not only part of the Marxist canon, but also the best model for others to follow in promoting revolution in the
third world.
Third, and more important for this study, Mao had to argue that his ideas were correct Marxist ideas in
competition with those Chinese leaders who instinctively and ideologically looked to Moscow for their
inspiration. Unable to dominate the specifics of policy-making on a day-to-day level within the party-state
bureaucracy, Maos major way of reasserting himself in the political arena was to maintain the importance of
ideology on the political agenda. By continually keeping the ideological debate alive, and by continually
emphasizing the correct Marxist approach of seeking truth from facts and asserting the primacy of the
6

Franz Schrumann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China. University of California Press. 1968 (Pages 29 30).

Shaun Breslin, Mao. (Page 66)

Shaun Breslin, Mao. (Page 66)

Chinese experience, Mao could reassert his views over and above those of his colleagues, and use the Marxist
debate as a tool to attack his opponents. Defending his ideas as the only correct interpretation of Marxism in
the Chinese case was a crucial component of Maos political strategy.9
v) Democratic Centralism
vi) The Implication
(1) Maoism = Alignment with Moscow (Leninists) & Internationalism Anti Mao
(2) Mao Thought = Nationalism The Uniqueness of the Chinese Experience
f)

The Significance of Language in Confucian tradition

In a country like China, where the rigid discipline of democratic centralism has been
superimposed upon strong Confucian traditions of patriarchal authority and group
conformity, party members and cadres are constantly indeed compulsively
constrained to look to higher levels for cues as to what is necessary, appropriate, or even
permissible language. Under such circumstances, even seemingly minor shifts in
prevailing terminology may prove extremely important.10

Dr. Sun Zhoungshan

2) The Republican Revolution of 1911

a) Dr. Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) 11
b) National Peoples party Goumindang or GMD (Kuomintang or KMT)
c) The Chinese Republic
The Chinese nation-building efforts in the early years of the present century were, as
argued by Mary Wright, directed toward action and change in three different, though
related spheres. They were, first, resistance to imperialism as reflected in Chinas assertion of its sovereignty along the
frontier areas and in the watchword recovery of sovereign rights; secondly, organization of a modern centralized nationstate, capable of forcing back the imperialists and forwarding Chinas aspirations in political, social, economic and
cultural life; and less important, the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty. These were in fact the responses China
developed to the imperialist danger it was faced with. It is interesting to note that the Nationalist Revolution in 1911
only accomplished the least important task of Chinese nationalism.12
d) Warlordism
2) World War I, Versailles and the May 4th Movement
a) The Chinese Contribution The 100,000
The outbreak of World War I in August 1914 was both a blessing and curse for China. It was a blessing because, as
almost all European Powers were deeply involved in the War, they had to loosen their grip on China, and the war gave
China a breathing space to develop its own infant industries. It was a blessing also because, probably unseen at the time,
it meant the breakdown of the European system of balance of power and it carried a prospect of reorganization of the
international system after the war, an opportunity for China to readjust its relations with the Powers and to find its own
legitimate standing in the new international order. It was a curse because the war immediately spread to East Asia and
because, as was soon proved, Japan was out to entrench itself and to bid for its supremacy in China at the expense of the
interest of the other Powers.13
b) The Japanese and the 21 demands
After the armistice of November 11, 1918, ended the war with Germanys defeat, anticipation in China ran high.
There were triumphant parades in Peking, and an exuberant crowd demolished the memorial that the Qing (Manchu
Dynasty) had been forced to raise in honor of the Germans killed by the Boxers. The Peking government was now
headed by yet another Beiyang-faction president and premier; Duan Qirui had resigned in October 1918, but before
9

Shaun Breslin, Mao. (Page 68)

10

Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping. Princeton University Press, 1994. (Page 13).
Chinese names are given in the Pinyin and parenthetically in the Wade-Giles. The British developed Wade-Giles in the 19 th Century and its use is
considered by some to reflect imperialistic values. The Pinyin system developed in Mainland China in the 1950s and received general acceptance in the
1970s. Its use is considered my some to reflect greater sensitivity to China.
12
Zhang Yongjin, China in the International System, 1918-20: The Middle Kingdom at the Periphery. St. Martins Press. 1991. (Pages 37-38).
13
Zhang Yongjin, China in the International System, 1918-20: The Middle Kingdom at the Periphery. St. Martins Press. 1991. (Page 40).
11

doing so had used the huge Japanese loans to enhance his own military power and had continued to build a network of
secret deals with the Japanese. The Chinese delegation to the postwar treaty negotiations at Versailles, sixty-two
members strong, was headed by five capable diplomats who had never been fully briefed on what to expect. They were
greeted at Versailles by the shattering announcement of the chief Japanese delegate that early in 1917, in return for
Japanese naval assistance against the Germans, Great Britain, France, and Italy had signed a secret treaty ensuring
support [of] Japans claim in regard to the disposal of Germanys rights in Shandong after the war.
As if that were not bad enough, the Japanese also announced that they had come to secret agreements with Duan
Qirui in September 1918, while he was still premier. These agreements granted the Japanese the right to station police
and to establish military garrisons in Jinan and Qingdao, and mortgaged to Japan, in partial payment for its loans to
China, the total income from two new Shandong railroads the Japanese planned to develop. The Chinese delegates seem
to have been genuinely unaware of these humiliating secret agreements. President Woodrow Wilson, who had earlier
been sympathetic to Chinas desire to recover its Shandong rights, now felt that Japan had staked out a firm claim to
them on the basis of international law. On April 30, 1919, he agreed with David Lloyd George of Britain and George
Clemenceau of France to transfer all of the Germanys Shandong rights to Japan.14
c)

The May 4th Movement

The news of the Big Threes decision in Paris to transfer Jiaozhou and former German interests in Shandong to
Japan, when reaching Beijing, immediately threw the Chinese from pious hope to deep despair. Youngs Chinas faith
in Wilsonian idealism was shattered to dust. The New World Order was no more! This frustration and exasperation
was soon transferred into a national protest against the Paris decision on Shandong. An unpremeditated nationalist
movement was started by students in Beijing on May 4, 1919.
The birth of Chinese nationalism was not, therefore, the inauguration of an ideological movement. Its very
emergence did not imply any existence of a formulated political concept built upon precepts of European philosophers.
Rather, it was a form of group consciousness primarily concerned with the survival of China as a nation. It was
characterized by what Nehru latter called an anti-foreign feeling. Mary Wright defined the massive Chinese
nationalism as an intense, widespread fear that China would be
Li Dazhao
Chen Duxiu
partitioned and the Chinese disappear as a people. From the
beginning of the century, nationalism had been transformed into
massive actions to resist imperialist oppression and domination
of
China.15
3) The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party
a) Third International of the Communist party (the Comintern)
March 1919
At the second Comintern congress, held in July 1920, Lenin
took the position that the capitalist stage of development need
not be inevitable for backward nations if they were aided by the
Soviet Union. Peasant soviets would be encouraged in such
cases, along with a temporary alliance with bourgeois democratic
parties.16

Mao Zedong

i) Nationalism
ii) Internationalism
b) Two Approaches to Communism in China
i) Chen Duxiu (Chen Tu-hsiu) Shanghai
(1) European Marxist
(2) Progressive Urban Elements would lead the party
ii) Li Dazhao (Li Ta-chao) National University of Peking librarian
(1) Application of Marxism to Chinese Society
(2) The role of the peasantry
(3) Mao Zedong
b) Grigorii Voitinski 1920 3rd Communist International
c) July 1921 the 1st Congress of the Chinese Communist Party
14

Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China. Norton, 1990. (Page 293).

15

Zhang Yongjin, China in the International System, 1918-20: The Middle Kingdom at the Periphery. St. Martins Press. 1991. (Page 74-76).
Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China. Norton, 1990. (Page 320).

16

4) China in the 1920s GMD and the CCP The United Front / The Purge
a) Sun Zhongshan & Lenin The United Front Strategy
i) United Front Borodin, Oct. 1923
ii) Military Links
b) The Death of Sun (March 12, 1925) & Lenin (January 21, 1924)
c) The Transition struggle between Stalin & Trotsky
d) The CCP & GMD Split
i) Jiang Jieshi (Chaing Kai-shek)
ii) The Western Hills Group August 1925
iii) The Purge of the CCP April 1927
iv) By the end of 1928 the Split is complete and the GMD under the
leadership of Jiang Jieshi
5) The Split and the Long March
a) The Northern Campaign 1926
b) The Autumn Harvest Uprising September 1927 (The division in the CCP
Peasant or Urban)
c) The Jiangxi Soviet (The Rural Strategy) 1928-1934
d) The Long March October 15, 1934 October 20, 1935
i) The Long March October 15, 1934 (85,000
Soldiers & 15,000 Government)
(1) Early Leadership
(a) Li Da (Le Ti)
(b) Bo Gu (Po Ku)
(c) Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai)
(2) Zunyi (Tsunyi) Conference, January 15-18,
1935 Maos Leadership
(a) Wang Jiaxiang (Wang Chia-hsiang)
(b) Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai)
(c) Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung)
ii) Maos leadership and the role of Zhou Enlai
(Chou En-lai)

Jiang Jieshi (Chaing Kai-shek)

2) Yenan and the Emergence of Mao Zedong

Summing up the experience in December 1935, Mao wrote:
The Long March is the first of its kind in the annals of
History. It is a manifesto, a propaganda force, a seedingmachine. It has proclaimed to the world that the Red Army
is an army of heroes, while the imperialists and their running
dogs, Chiang Kai-shek and his like, are impotent.17

Part 2 The Rise to Power of the Chinese

Communist Party
1) Historiographic Issues
a) What was the CCP? The Lost Chance
i) Is the CCP an Internationalist Party or a
Nationalist Party? If it is Internationalist, it is
firmly linked to the Soviet Union and
International Communism. If it is Nationalist, it
is not linked to the Soviet Union and instead it
steers its own course and is open to other influences. This area tends to be dominated by the diplomatic
historians.
ii) What is Mao? The Mao Thought / Maoism debate. As we have seen in an earlier outline, there is a great deal of
debate as to the nature of Mao ideology. The debate matters a great deal because it is through this debate that
17

Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China. Norton, 1990. (Page 409).

Mao is able to rise to power and it is through the debate that Mao is able to reassert his authority. This area
tends to be dominated by the China studies community.
For the Leninists within the party [the CCP], the primacy was on economic recovery and development.
Changing the way people think was not unimportant, but as China was a backward and underdeveloped country,
they argued that the main task was to (re)build the economy. Once this was completed, then the party could
move on to other tasks. For Mao, this approach was anathema, and was based on an over-strong
acceptance of what he called dogma and the rejection of the Chinese experience. He too believed that
China should develop, and develop as quickly as possible. It was not the goal that Mao objected to but both the
methods and the underlying principles that guided these goals.
Mao warned that whilst the Leninist proposals might lead to economic development in China, it would
be to the detriment of building communism. The methods they planned to use would generate new forms
of oppression, control and authority that would leave the Chinese masses as powerless as they had been
before the revolution. If managers and experts controlled the revolution, then they would come to see
themselves as superior to the workers (and the workers would perceive themselves as inferior). If bureaucrats
and planners took control of the revolution, they would come to see themselves as superior to the proletariat,
and the proletariat would either through coercion or habit develop a passive acceptance of the partys right to
dictate.18
iii) The Connection between the two. Recently there has been a movement by historians to connect the two debates
and the two fields of study. This movement has been spurred by an increase in access to historical material.
The collapse of the Soviet Union has led to increased access to material regarding the rise and fall of the SinoSoviet alliance and some expanded access to the records of the Chinese Communist Party. As a result,
historians like Chen Jian (U.Va.) and others have been able to produce a synthesis of the two views that
connects the domestic issues to the foreign policy issues. The role of development issues and Chinas fear of
imperialism take an important place in these new interpretations.
Thus Maos China dramatically enhanced the theme of decolonization in the Communist Cold War
discourse that had been overwhelmingly dominated by class-struggle-centered language. As a result, the
emerging anti-imperialist / anticolonialist movements in non-Western countries became more tightly connected
with the proletarian world revolution.19
b) Did the GMD lose? Or did the CCP win?
i) The CCP Won Because of the War with Japan Chalmers A. Johnson
In other words, from 1921 to 1937 Communism failed in China because the Chinese people, in general, were
indifferent to what the Communist Party had to offer. After 1937, it succeeded because the population became
receptive to one particular kind of political appeal; and the Communist Party in one of its many disguises made
precisely that appeal; it offered to meet the needs of the people for leadership in organizing resistance to the invader
and in alleviating war-induced anarchy in the rural areas.20
ii) The GMD Lost and the CCP Won Suzanne Pepper
Politically, therefore, the CCPs victory was as genuine as the KMT (GMD)s21 defeat. In the cities, both were
tempered by fear among intellectuals and capitalists that the Communists would in certain respects be worse than the
KMT (GMD). In the countryside, the alienation of the ruling class was more than balanced by the strength of the
mass base mobilized and organized in the process. In terms of their ability to cope with the problems that had
undermined public confidence in the KMT (GMD) Government, the CCPs record was clearly positive. The
Communists did not just happen to be in the right place at the right time to benefit from the KMT (GMD) debacle.
They did not win an unqualified mandate in 1949 to establish one-party Communist rule in Mainland China. But

18

19

Shaun Breslin, Mao. Longman, 1998, Page 55.

Chen Jian, Maos China & the Cold War, University of North Carolina, 2001, Page 5
Chalmers A. Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China 1937-1945. Stanford University Press, 1962
Page 7.
21
Suzanne Peppers book was originally published in 1978 when Wade-Giles was still the standard system of transliteration in the United States academic
community. The cost of changing all the system would have been prohibitive for the publishing of the second edition.
20

their achievements had been substantial enough to provide a basis for the transfer of popular allegiance to the new
Communist-led Government.22
2) The War with Japan and United Front Part 2
a) Japanese aggression in Manchuria
i) Korea 1910
ii) Manchuria-Mongolia Autonomous Movement September 1931 Manchukou
b) The Long March Oct. 1934 to October 1935 Yenan
c) The 2nd United Front
i) The Cominterns 7th Conference, August 1935 Promote United Fronts against Fascism around the World
ii) CCP policy change 1936 The National Liberation Anti-Japanese Association slogans Chinese should not
fight Chinese.
iii) The Sian Incident December 1936
(1) The Nanking Government GMD Chiang Kai-shek
(2) The capture of Chiang by Yang Hu-cheng Force the United Front
(3) The New United Front ally with Chaing against Japan.
d) The Undeclared War, 1937
Invoking the Boxer Protocol of 1901 which permitted foreign signatories to station troops between Peking (Peiping)
and the Sea, the Japanese garrison in North China in early July 1937 held a field exercise outside Peiping, near the
Marco Polo Bridge. On the pretext that a soldier was missing, the Japanese demand to enter the nearby city of Wanping
before midnight of July 7 to conduct a search. When refused by the local Chinese garrison the 29th Army under
General Sung Che-yuan the Japanese army bombarded the city and occupied it at 4:30 on the morning of July 8, thus
precipitating an undeclared war between the two countries.23
e)
f)

The Rape of Nanking August 1937 Chiang and the KMT to Chungking in Szechwan
The United Front (a second time) September 22, 1937
i) Together We Confront the National Crisis.24
ii) Our fixed policy, he said (Mao Zedong), should be 70 percent expansion, 20 percent dealing with the
Kuomintang, and 10 percent resisting Japan.25
g) The Yenan Period (1937-45)
i) Significance
The Yenan period of wartime resistance (1937-45) provided Mao and the CCP with the much needed time to
restructure the party and the army, organize the masses, and develop new social, political, and economic institutions.
Mao was at the peak of his creativity, ingeniously reconciling the universalist Marxist-Leninist principles with the
particularist demand of the Chinese conditions and the Chinese revolutionary experience. Hence, the Yenan
experience was of seminal importance to the development of Chinese Communism; in it was planted the seed of
Maos ultimate success.
The heart of the Yenan Way was the perfection of the mass line and the sharpening of revolutionary
nationalism in the countryside, which became the twin pillars of Maoism. 26
ii) Foreign Observers
(1) Edgar Snow Red Star Over China
(2) Theodore White
h) Chungking vs. Yenan
i) The Mandate of Heaven
ii) The Role of the United States
iii) The Dixie Mission July 1944
i) The Post War World and China
i) The Cairo Declaration December 1, 1943
ii) General Joseph Stilwell
iii) The CCP and the Soviet Union
22

Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949. 2nd Ed. Rowman & Litttlefield. 1999. Page 433.

23

Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China. 6th Ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Pages 582-583.
Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China. 6th Ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Pages 589.

24
25
26

Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China. 6th Ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Pages 589.
Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China. 6th Ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Pages 591.

j)

The End of the War and China

i) The Yalta Conference February 1945

Diane Shaver Clemens, Yalta. Oxford University Press, 1970, Pages 310-311.

The Big Three at Yalta

On February 11, 1945, Joseph Stalin, Franklin

D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill, then in
conclave at the Crimean port of Yalta, signed an
agreement for disposing of Far Eastern questions.
Stalin had conditioned the Soviet Unions
entrance into the war against Japan on that
agreement, which would ensure the expansion of
Soviet supremacy in Asia. The accord stated that
the status quo in Outer Mongolia (the Mongolian
Peoples Republic) would be preserved, and that
the former rights of Russia violated by the
treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 would be
restored. In addition to validating various Soviet
claims against Japan itself, Yalta gave Moscow
extraterritorial rights in China and prescribed the
conclusion of a treaty of alliance between Moscow and the Nationalist government in Chongqing (Chungking).
The security equation for Stalin was simple: subordinate the interests of weak states (including China) to those of
the powerful, divide the strategic regions of the world into spheres of influence, and widen the buffer zones along
the periphery of the Soviet State. His was the diplomacy of imperial Russia. 27
27

Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, & Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War. Page 2.

ii) The Treaty of Friendship and Alliance August 14, 1945

iii) The Effect of the War on China

3) The Civil War (1946-1949)

a) The Coming of the Civil War
i) The Credibility of the CCP US Policy
ii) The Role of the Soviet Union
iii) The Democratization of Chinese Politics August 1945
iv) Manchuria
(1) US/GMD Policy
(2) Change in Soviet Policy

Gen. Marshall & Chaing Kai-shek

When the Americans made it clear that they would exercise

exclusive control of the occupation of Japan, the Soviets
immediately decided to harden their policy toward the United
States in East Asia and the GMD in China.
The Soviets were now willing to break their obligation under the
Sino-Soviet treaty. Beginning in early October their attitude toward
the Northeast issue changed further in the CCPs favor. The Soviet
Red Army began to create barriers against the GMD troops
movement into the Northeast, claiming that until an overall solution
of the Northeast issue had been worked out, they would not allow
GMD troops to enter areas they occupied. In the meantime, the
Soviets increased their support for the CCP. On 4 October, the
Soviets advised the CCP Northeast Bureau that the Chinese Communists should move as many as 300,000 troops
into the Northeast in one months time, and the Soviets would provide them with large numbers of weapons. On 19
October, the CCP leadership decided to go all out to control the entire Northeast. 28
The connection between US-Soviet policy, the Bomb, and the Soviet Unions role in China:
As long as the Truman administration wanted Soviet entry [into the war against Japan], it had an incentive to
press the Chinese to accept the Yalta Agreement. By the summer of 1945, however, Soviet policy in Europe made
Soviet participation in the war against Japan appear less attractive to some members of the administration. Averell
Harriman, the ambassador in Moscow, was very skeptical about the desirability of Soviet entry, and he urged [KMT
diplomat] Soong, who reported to him regularly on the progress of his talks with Stalin and Molotov, to stand firm.
After the Alamogordo [A-bomb] test, Soviet entry into the war appeared not only less desirable, but also less urgent.
Byrnes, believing that prolonged Sino-Soviet talks would delay Soviet entry, cabled Soong from Potsdam to advise
him not to give way to the Soviet Union on any point. It is quite clear, noted Churchill on July 23, that the
United States does not at the present time desire Russian participation in the war against Japan. In spite of
reservations among his advisers, however, Truman did not seek to withdraw from the Yalta Agreement.
Whether or not they knew of changing Western attitudes, the Soviet leaders feared that Britain and the United
States might conclude the war with Japan before the Soviet Union was able to enter. The secret Bulletin of the
Central Committee Information Bureau reported in its issue of July 1, 1945 that reactionary circles in Britain wanted
a compromise peace with Japan in order to prevent the Soviet Union from strengthening its influence in the Far East.
The same question, it noted, was being raised in American newspapers and journals as well. Stalin was afraid that if
the war ended before the Soviet Union entered, the United States and Britain would renege on the Yalta Agreement,
which was contingent upon Soviet participation in the war. Stalin was leaning on our officers to start military
action as soon as possible, Nikita Khrushchev later recalled. Stalin had his doubts about whether the Americans
would keep their word. What if Japan capitulated before we entered the war? The Americans might say, we
dont owe you anything.29
v) The Marshall Mission December 1945 January 1947
vi) Civil War June 1946
b) The Failure of the GMD
i) The Economy Loss of Strength

28
29

Chen Jian, Maos China & the Cold War, University of North Carolina, 2001, Page 31.
David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb. Yale University Press, 1994. Page 125.

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This decision [by the GMD to give automatic wage adjustments based on increases in the cost of living/inflation]
not only accelerated the upward wage-price spiral; it also compromised the KMTs (GMDs) long-standing alliance
with business and industry. The Government was in effect obliged to trade a fitful peace on the labor front for the
resentment of entrepreneurs, who argued that the concessions to labor were contributing to soaring production costs.
High wage payments were only part of the problem. But the Government seemingly could not win, since it was
responsible, either because of the inflation itself or because of the inadequate attempts to minimize its consequences,
for virtually all other components of the problem as well. The resentment culminated in the August , 1948, reforms
which finally brought the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce and the Shanghai Industrial Association into open
denunciation of the Governments policies.30
ii) The Intellectuals
The impoverishment of the academic community did, of course, inspire one of the major themes of the student
anti-war movement. The professors themselves precipitated the Anti-Hunger Anti-Civil War demonstrations in 1947
with their demands for, among other things, an increase in basic salary and automatic wage adjustments geared to
the rise in the cost of living. The economic deprivations caused by the Governments use of the printing press to
finance the war provided one important issue for those who argued against the Civil War, and obviously helped to
undermine support for it within the intellectual community. But unlike the labor movement, which fed directly on
the economic chaos created by the inflation, the intellectuals aversion to the Civil War was based on a more
complex assessment of the nature of KMT (GMD) rule and the sacrifices the nation as a whole should have to bear
in order to preserve it. The intellectuals own impoverishment was only one of the considerations apparent in their
assessment. They opposed the Civil War because they reasoned it was too high a price to pay in order to keep in
power the KMT (GMD) as it was then constituted.31
iii) Popular Support
The printing press may have been the governments chief source of revenue, but the Government depended also
on a land tax, on the compulsory purchase of grain at lower than market prices, and on the collection of grain on
loan. These levies, together with requisitions to support local needs, the abuses associated with conscription, and the
disruptions caused by a poorly disciplined and underpaid army in the field, created insupportable burdens for the
peasantry. Finally, an increasingly militaristic government, and increased political alienation among the public,
were also condemned as direct results of the war. For all these reasons, the Governments insistence on fighting it,
while failing to implement any of the reforms that might have made it more acceptable, provided the strongest
possible evidence to support the charge that the KMT (GMD) Government did not exist for the people; that, to the
contrary, it was willing to sacrifice the interests of the nation as a whole in pursuit of its own selfish aims; and that it
was basically incapable of serving that end effectively.32
c)

The Success of the CCP

i) General Competence
First, the Communists had built a record of credibility which served them well in 1949. The KMT (GMD) had a
habit of saying one thing and doing another, of promulgating reform measures and never implementing them. The
Communists, by contrast, had a reputation of keeping their word, for actually implementing their policies, and for
correcting their mistakes. The Communists said that their ultimate goal was the realization of communism in China.
No one doubted that this was their goal. But the Communists also said that it would take many years to achieve it,
and that in the meantime they planned to build a New Democratic society in which there would be a place and a
need for everyone, bourgeois intellectuals and national capitalists as well as worker and landowning peasant. Since
the Communists said this, intellectuals and capitalists were inclined to believe it. 33
ii) Flexible Tactics The CCP was willing to adapt and change ideologically in order to achieve its goals.
The repudiation was formalized, toward the end of 1947, with the campaign against left adventurism. At this
time, the Partys orientation toward business, industry, labor, and the intelligentsia shifted towards maximizing
production and creating an alliance of the greatest possible number in the interests of achieving total victory. The

30
31
32
33

Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949. 2nd Ed. Rowman & Litttlefield. 1999. Page 425.
Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949. 2nd Ed. Rowman & Litttlefield. 1999. Page 426.
Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949. 2nd Ed. Rowman & Litttlefield. 1999. Page 426.
Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949. 2nd Ed. Rowman & Litttlefield. 1999. Page 428.

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new line stressed cooperation with private capital, the rationalization of management in public enterprise, and the
necessity of winning over the intellectuals regardless of their ideological differences with communism
The anti-leftist campaigns of 1948 provided the basis of the successful take-over of urban China in 1949.34
iii) The Countryside
(1) Mass Movement Mass Activation Through Class Struggle: The Mother of all Party Work
The winning formula had emerged during the war with Japan. Having abandoned violent land confiscation in
the interest of the anti-Japanese united front, the Communists were obliged to look for new ways of transferring
wealth from those who had it to those who did not. This shift was particularly significant in north China, where
tenancy was not the dominant problem and a majority of the peasants owned the land they tilled. As a result of
their search, the Communists rural land policy had expanded by 1945, through the settling of old accounts
tactic, to encompass the full range of issues that would provide benefits to the basic masses of north China.
In addition to the material incentives provided by the redistribution of wealth derived through the settling
accounts struggle, the Communists could offer a solution for what the peasantry as a whole perceived as its
most immediate grievances: the corrupt and arbitrary use of political power and social position within the
village community.
In exploiting these issues, together with all the others associated with the ownership and use of land, unpaid
labor, and indebtedness, the CCP had discovered a formula for mass activation through class struggle even in
areas where landlords were not a problem that concerned the village masses. In the process, the Chinese
Communists had not only found the means of destroying the rural system of economic and political power; they
had also discovered how to mobilize peasant support for the construction of a new one. 35
(2) Land Reform
The land reform program was the Communists key revolutionary effort of the subsequent Civil War period.
The development of that program in north China, and the experience gained in the manner of and conditions for
its implementation, must be counted among the most important
experiences the Communists brought from the Anti-Japanese War.
These lessons were formalized in the Partys directive of May 4,
1946, which marked the official shift from rent reduction to land
reform. Land reform as outlined in the May Fourth Directive,
however, was nothing more nor less than the multi-featured
struggle movement that had been developing in practice
throughout the Anti-Japanese War.
The relationship between land reform and the prerequisites for
implementing it was one that was mutually sustaining. Land
reform was significant as a means of mobilizing the peasants to
Mao and the Creation of the PRC
participate in the Struggle against Chiang Kai-shek. At the same
October 1, 1949
time, the purpose of the armed struggle was to make possible the
realization of land reform. 36
d) October 1, 1949 The Peoples Republic of China Just the Beginning
Mao and the CCP leadership attached even greater importance to the problem of maintaining the inner dynamics of the
Chinese Communist revolution after victory than they did to political consolidation and economic reconstruction. This
emphasis was to play a decisive role in shaping Communist Chinas foreign policy. Mao titled his 1949 New Years
message Carry the Revolution through to the End. According to him and other CCP leaders, the end of the
revolution must be understood at two different levels. First, the CCP was determined to eliminate the GMD military
forces and to overthrow the GMD regime so that the Chinese reactionaries would not be able to come back, by taking
advantage of the compromise of the revolutionaries, as had happened during the 1911 revolution and the North
Expedition [of 1927]. Second, Mao was contemplating how to push the revolution forward after its victory. In his
report to the Central Committees Second Plenary Session, Mao pointed out that the CCPs seizure of power was only
the completion of the first step in the long march of the Chinese Communist revolution, and that the road after the
victory would be longer, the work greater and more arduous. Mao warned the members of the party:
34

Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949. 2nd Ed. Rowman & Litttlefield. 1999. Page 428-29.

35

Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949. 2nd Ed. Rowman & Litttlefield. 1999. Page 430.
Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949. 2nd Ed. Rowman & Litttlefield. 1999. Page 431.

36

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It will not require much time and effort to win the nationwide victory, but to consolidate it will. The bourgeoisie
doubts our ability to construct. The imperialists reckon that eventually we will beg alms from them in order to live.
With victory, such moods as arrogance, self-styled heroism, inertia and unwillingness to advance, preoccupation with
pleasure-seeking, and a distaste for continued hard struggle may grow within the party. With victory, the people will
be grateful to us and the bourgeoisie will come forward to flatter us. It has been proved that the enemy can not
conquer us by force of arms. The flattery of the bourgeoisie, however, may conquer the weak-willed in our ranks.
There may be some Communists who were not conquered by enemies with guns and were worthy of the name of
heroes for standing up to these enemies, but who cannot withstand the sugar-coated bullets; they will be defeated by
sugar-coated bullets. We must guard against such a situation.
This emphasis on carrying the revolution through to the end was a long-standing preoccupation in Maos thinking. As
early as 1939 and 1940, Mao stated in The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party and On New
Democracy, two of his most important works, that the Chinese Communist revolution would be divided into two stages:
the stage of new democratic revolution and the stage of socialist revolution. During the first stage, the revolution had to
overthrow the rule of the bureaucratic-capitalist class, wipe out foreign influence, eliminate remnants of feudal tradition,
and establish a Communist-led regime that would unify all patriotic social classes in China. The second stage of the
revolution would transform the Chinese society, including the economic system, political structure, and social life, under
the leadership of the Communist regime. This transformation would lay the foundation of Chinas transition into a
socialist and latter a Communist society. In Maos view, the two stages of the revolution were closely linked: without the
first stage, the second stage of the revolution would be impossible; without the second stage, the first stage of the
revolution would become meaningless. When Mao called for carrying the revolution through to the end in 1949, he
was thinking about leading the revolution into its necessary second stage. 37

37

Chen Jian, Chinas Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation. Columbia University Press. 1994. Pages 13-14.

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IB Topics in 20th Century History

Log Requirements & Reading assignments
The Great Chinese Revolution Begins
Required Reading:
1. Shaun Breslin, Mao Introduction Due September 29th
2. Chen Jian, Maos China and the Cold War Introduction September 29th
3. Chen Jian, Maos China and the Cold War Chapter 1 October 6th
4. Shaun Breslin, Mao Chapter 1 Due October 14th
5. Shaun Breslin, Mao Chapter 2 Due October 20th
6. Chen Jian, Maos China and the Cold War Chapter 2 October 27th
Paper #1: The Emergence and Development of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), 1946-1964
See Page 18 The completed DBQ is due on 23rd for Red Day classes and the 24th for Blue day Classes. The DBQ
must be turned in both to Turnitin.com and a copy to the instructor at the beginning of your class meeting the day it is
due.
Possible Paper #2 Questions:
Topic 1: Causes, practices and effects of war
1. The revolutionary war is a war of the masses; it can be waged only by mobilizing the masses and relying on
them (Mao Zedong [Mao Tse-tung]). To what extent do you agree with this statement?
2. Why was there so much civil strife and civil war in China during the first half of the twentieth century?
Topic 3: The rise and rule of single-party states
1. What are the common factors in the rise of a single party states in developed and developing countries? Be
specific in your answer.
2. In what ways and for what reasons did China develop its own brand of Marxism/Communism?
Log Requirements:
For each log entry you must complete all of the following that are applicable
1. Complete citation (author, title, publication information, & date of publication)
2. Type of writing / Audience for the writing
3. Major Thesis
4. Supporting information
5. Specific quotes that illuminate the authors argument
6. Strengths and limitations of the source
7. Your response to the reading (how has the reading effected your understanding of the subject)
Rubric:
A Logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner, No missing entries.
B+ Most logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner, few logs do not deal with all issues, No missing
entries.
B Some logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner, many logs do not deal with all issues, No missing
entries.
C+ Missing entries, All logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner.
C Missing entries, Most logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner, few logs do not deal with all
issues.
D+ Missing entries, Some logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner, many logs do not deal with all
issues.
D Majority of entries are missing.
F No Log

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HISTORY
HIGHER LEVEL AND STANDARD LEVEL
PAPER 1
1 hour

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANIDATES

You may use your notes, logs, texts, handouts & you may discuss it with your classmates but the final product should be
your own.
Refer to the Source Booklet which accompanies this examination paper.
Answer all four questions on ONE section only either:
Section A
Or
Section B
Or
Section C

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SECTION B
Prescribed Subject 2 The Emergence and Development of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), 1946-1964
5.

(a) According to Source A what is the chief aim of our party?

[3 marks]
(b) Explain the association between the two men in Source D
[2 marks]

6.

How consistent are Sources A & B in explaining the goals of the Chinese Communist Party?
[6 marks]

7.

With reference to their origins and purpose, assess the value and limitations of Sources C and E for historians
studying the rise to power of Mao.
[6 marks]

8.

Using the sources and your own knowledge, explain how Mao Zedong was able to rise to the leadership of the
Chinese Communist Party.
[8 marks]

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HISTORY
HIGHER LEVEL AND STANDARD LEVEL
PAPER 1

SOURCE BOOKLET

- 20 -

Texts in this source booklet have been edited: word additions or explanations are shown in square brackets []; substantive
deletions of text are indicated by ellipses in square brackets []; minor changes are not indicated.
Section B
Prescribed Subject 2 The Emergence and Development of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), 1946-1964
These sources relate the conflict within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regarding the nature of the CCP.
SOURCE A

An extract from The First Decision as to the Objects of the CCP (July-August 1921)

1) Labor Organization
To form industrial unions is the chief aim of our party. In any locality where there is more than one kind of industry, an
industrial union shall be organized; if there is no great industry in a certain locality but only one or two factories, a factory
union can be organized suitable to conditions in that locality.
The party should imbue the unions with the spirit of the class struggle. If the political struggle fostered by various unions,
does not agree with our program, the party should avoid becoming a puppet of other parties.
SOURCE B

An extract from the Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan. By Mao
Zedong (28 March 1927)

The further development of the peasant movement is a tremendous problem. Within a short time, hundreds of millions
of peasants will rise in central, south, and north China with the fury of a hurricane; no force, no matter how strong, can
restrain them. They will break all the shackles that bind them and rush toward the road of liberation. All imperialists,
warlords, corrupt officials, and bad gentry will meet their doom at the hands of the peasants. All revolutionary parties and
comrades will be judged by them. Are we to get in front of them and lead them or criticize them behind their backs or fight
them from the opposite camp? Among these three alternatives every Chinese can choose freely, but the current situation
demands a quick decision.
SOURCE C

An extract from Mao by Shaun Breslin, London 1998

We are in many ways entirely correct to talk in terms of Maos China (he was the single most important figure in the
countrys evolution after 1949) and to take a Mao-centric approach (he was the central figure to whom all other political
actors referred in defining their own approaches and strategies). But China was never a totally totalitarian state, and Mao was
never an all-powerful figure who could single-handedly shape the entire country and its destiny. There were considerable
limits to Maos power, and the way that he tried to over come these limit was an important determinant of the evolution of
Chinese politics while he was alive.
SOURCE D

A photograph of a Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong in north Shensi in 1937

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SOURCE E

An extract from the Outline for Communicating the Zunyi Enlarged Politburo Meeting. Chen Yun
(February-March 1935)

[] While such errors in military command persisted, controversies occurred within the party and the Military Council.
Mao [Zedong], Zhang [Westian], and Wang [Jianxiang] raised many objections, and even Comrade [Zhou] Enlai expressed
his disagreement concerning some individual battles, but such mistakes could not be successfully overcome. []
The enlarged meeting points out that while three comrades A [Braun], Bo [Gu], and Zhou [Enlai] constituted the erroneous
military leadership, the two comrades A and Bo must bear the main responsibility.
The enlarged meeting points out that the correction of the erroneous military leadership in the party is not a split in the
party. On the contrary, it makes the party more united, puts the military leadership on the right track, and further increases
the prestige of the party and the Military Council. All vacillating, discouraged, and pessimistic elements have not the least bit
in common with the advancing Bolsheviks. The enlarged meeting calls for opposing all right opportunist trends while
refuting the pure defense line in military command.
D) Finally, the enlarged meeting made the following decisions:
i) Comrade Mao Zedong has been elected a member of the Standing Committee. []

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