A typical American pictures a Chinese person as a man with white hair and a long, pointed beard and has long fingernails and spits out profound words of wisdom as a sage or a fortune cookie. The typical American is not the only one at fault for thinking of the Chinese in that way; American scholars usually study only the periods of Chinese history long before 1900. Speaking for Americans in 1959, renowned scholar Mary C. Wright wrote, "Our experience had not prepared us for a society marked both by strong tradition and by powerful revolutionary drives" (Levenson 200). China has changed dramatically in the twentieth century. The change is due mainly to new governments, responsible for controlling and manipulating the lives of its people.
Throughout the twentieth century, the Chinese have struggled with several questions--the answers to which have directed and continue to direct their country into the future. "What of the old is worth keeping? Can we keep it and survive in the modern world? What of the new is desirable? Must we take the undesirable too in order to survive? Or can China make a future for herself on lines not yet tried elsewhere?" (Levenson 200) Politically, the answers have taken the Chinese through a series of different governments in their attempts to reform China and revive her back to her world-power status. China has been controlled by various governments with different ideologies over the past century. Each change in government was caused by a large group of people who believed that a new system, usually based on a strong central government, had to be established for the betterment of China. After hundreds of years of being ruled over by an emperor and a feudalistic society, some Chinese found the courage to speak out against their superiors. During the second half of the ynineteenth century, some social reforms, such as anti-footbinding and opium smoking, took place, but large-scale sweeping reforms were not called for until idealistic, Western-trained intellectuals returned to China in the 1900s.
The beginning of the major revolutionary period is marked by the Revolution of 1911. Inspired most by Sun Yat-sen (even though he was in the United States at the time), the Revolution established the Republic of China by overthrowing the Manchu Dynasty which was believed to be hindering China's modernization. Yuan Shih-kai, the dominant warlord, became president of the Republic. After Yuan died in 1916, contending warlords, internal political decay, and foreign territorial expansion (mainly by Japan) divided China; reform attempts failed because of China's division and weakness.
A period of warlordism followed Yuan's death. No single, strong ruler or regime combined control of military forces, the civil bureaucracy, and the central government finances. Many military/political groups controlled their own regions, provinces, or countries. The group that dominated the North controlled the Peking government, while those in the West and South ignored orders and protected their autonomy with alliances and defensive wars.
The May Fourth period from about 1917 to the early 1920s is thought of as an "intellectual revolution" because it was led by students returning from studying abroad (Bates 39). From their Western education, the new Chinese intellectuals brought foreign ideas like liberal democracy, syndicalism, guild socialism, and communism-- thought of as possible solutions to China's problems. The students proposed a change in China's ethical system and social institutions, language reform, and especially change in the economic system that had allowed mass poverty. The actual May Fourth Movement of 1919 was a parade protest of the Versailles Treaty that allowed Japan to keep Germany's rights and possessions in the Shantung Province, and so China refused to sign the treaty (Bates 40). The movement's popularity spread iconoclastic and reformist ideas of the broader intellectual movement. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) grew directly from the May Fourth Movement. Its leaders and first members were professors and students at Peking University and other institutions.
The National Revolution (1923-27) was a patriotic, antiforeign movement against the privileges of foreign powers (Bates 41). The goals of this revolution were to reunify China, to end the Unequal Treaty System, to modernize China, and to bring social justice. The National Revolution was led by both the Nationalist party (Kuomintang or KMT) and the Communist party (Kungch'antang or CCP), two parties with different ideologies but the identical goal of controlling China. The Nationalists were the more powerful party while the Communists acted as junior members of the KMT. With Russia's help, the coalition of the parties built a strong military base for China--much needed after repeatedly being humiliated in battle and to defest the contending warlords.
During the National Revolution, each party tried to strengthen itself. The KMT established the Whampoa Academy, a military academy near Canton, that taught young officers revolutionary ideology and loyalty to the party. The CCP developed a stronger base of support among the labor unions, farmers' associations, student organizations, and women's rights movements. The CCP was especially successful and aggressive with these mass movements. The movements grew more militant, causing increased resistance from large landowners, local political bosses, factory owners, and leaders of rival unions. The CCP grew more powerful, and its leaders wanted more political say.
Through the National Revolution, half of China was controlled by the Nationalists by early 1927 (Bates 45). Victory was near, but conflicting ideologies and ambitions won. The question was who would control the political scene of China--the more radical or the more conservative revolutionaries? The delicate alliance of the KMT and the CCP broke down between March and April, 1927 (Bates 46).
The socially conservative and intensely nationalistic Kuomintang won in the short term and created the National government of the Republic of China, which ruled from 1928-49 on mainland China and still governs Taiwan (Bates 46). The Nationalist party originated in an earlier revolution against the Manchus and was revived by Sun and a small group of veterans in 1919 during a resurgence of patriotism. Sun's Three Principle's of the People (Nationalism, Democracy, and People's Livelihood) were the founding beliefs of the new government (Feuerwerker 72). After Sun's death, the KMT and its new leader Chiang Kai-shek were well-known for their fascist beliefs. Fascism is a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism ("fascism").
Developing military forces, increasing the Red Army, expanding Soviet military bases, and countering the National government's extermination campaigns against them, the Communists fought against the Nationalists for twenty-two years for the support of the Chinese people. The fight between the two parties can be divided into three phases. During phase one (1928-37), the National government worked to unify China, to modernize the country, and to reassert China's position as a sovereign state (Bates 46). The government's efforts were focused primarily on the cities. It used its military power to subdue rivals and basically forced the Red Armies to the northwest, a journey commonly called The Long March. But, Chinas internal fighting stopped in 1936 and nationalism grew due to Japan's increased aggression. The CCP worked with the KMT, the National government, and Chiang Kai-shek against Japan.
Phase two is the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45 (Bates 49). Inflation was extremely high and nearly uncontrollable. Low morale and factional politics and corruption plagued National government officials. The CCP grew through combat to about 1,200,000 members in 1945 and was led mostly by Chinese peasants. The communist armies numbered one million men and were backed by a militia of two million (Bates 51). The parties were as much against each other as they were against Japan. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the United States got involved in the war and assisted China. Finally, in August 1945, Japan surrendered (Bates 54).
Japan's surrender set phase three into motion. Both parties worked to gain control of important cities, railroads, mines, etc. The final showdown between the KMT and CCP was civil war. The deciding factor of the war was the fact that the KMT controlled the cities while the CCP controlled the country. The CCP won because the cities were surrounded by and eventually taken over by the country and the CCP.
In 1949, the Communists were in power; as promised, they redistributed land (Joseph 10). Order was needed because China had been torn by civil and world war for over 100 years, her population was mostly poor and illiterate, and the economy was terrible. The Communists secured China's borders, established government institutions, and brought up the Chinese standard of living (Joseph 17). Even though the CCP knew how to revolt, they did not know how to govern. Since the Soviet model was not applicable to China's situation, Mao Zedong took a different approach, called Maoism, and adapted the model to meet China's needs. Communism is defined as 1. a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state or 2. a political doctrine or movement based on Marxism and developed by Lenin and others, seeking a violent overthrow of capitalism and the creation of a classless society ("communism"). Mao was one of the developers of this doctrine and led its implementation in China. He believed that the peasants, rather than the industrial workers as Marx believed, were China's revolutionary class and her greatest natural resource.
In need of economic reform, the Communists established a command economy- -meaning that the direction, policies, and allocation of resources were decided by the Party objectives for the country. The State Planning Commission and the State Economic Commission implemented the objectives and set up administrative programs, industrial and agricultural targets, and how to distribute resources. The centralized economy united and integrated the formerly divided country, but the system was inefficient and failed because it lacked work incentives.
The government was constantly implementing new policies and reform movements so that China would eventually become the ideal socialist state. Besides individual reform movements, the CCP directed sweeping reform movements. Not every plan was successful and some, like the education and general improvement in the lives of the peasants.
China has changed her answers to the questions
posed at the beginning of the
document several times, and she continues to ask herself these questions. The
endless questioning and rejection of, first, China's traditional values
(Confucianism);
then, Marxism-Leninism and the infallibility of the party; and, finally, Mao Thought have
left China without a strong belief system (Joseph 12). Into the emptiness steps other
Western values and ideas. Capitalism and democracy are taking root in today's
Chinese political culture. The next revolution may lead to a democratic
state or a
completely new style of government. Now, in 1995, the only practical prediction that
can be made is that China will continue to change and to develop her own
form of government.
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