Political Development of Modern China

POLI132 – Political Development of Modern China

February 11, Week 6 – Notes

Lenin’s conceptualization of the world: in the east most people are peasants, while in the west there is capitalism and bourgeoisie. Imperialism is the link between east and west.

Lenin’s theory: capitalism has to engage in imperialism to ensure survival. So, Lenin proposed to have an alliance between the proletariats in the west and peasants in the east.[1] In order to do that he wanted to support wars of national liberation, as these have the capacity to disrupt this imperialist link. This is why this was the strategy chosen by Comintern: they have sent people to China and India to form new communist parties and encourage nationalistic movements in these countries. This strategy and rhetoric was appealing to one of the founders of the CCP, Li Ta-chao, who was a head librarian at Beijing university. He and Chen Duxiu have organized study groups to study Marxism. Li Ta-chao was attracted by this imagery of China playing a key role in the international revolution.

Chinese Marxists (including Mao Zedong) viewed the world differently. In their view, East was predominantly proletariat. It suggested the possibility of a socialist revolution in China. Bolsheviks, and the Comintern, however, had an instrumentalist approach to the Chinese revolution. They were promoting nationalist sentiments in China only to foment the socialist revolution in the West.[2] This divergence would lay the groundwork for the conflict between Mao and the Soviet Union later because they had two different approaches to the revolution in china

1920-1921 – Communist Party of China  formed in the framework of the New Cultural movement. However, before it came to life, it is necessary to see why this development has occurred. In Confucianism, the biggest problem of their time was luan, disorder. They envisaged progress occurring in the movement from luan to kang, approaching peace. The last stage in this process would be taiping, heavenly peace. Kang Youwei resurrected this vision: showed Confucianism as advocating change. However, when Yuan Shikai replaced Sun Yatsen, not long after that he proclaimed himself an emperor again. The idea of revolution and reform faded, as Yuan Shikai intended to restore the traditional Chinese order. This has diverted people away from the movement because the movement proved to be futile and failed to achieve any significant reform. This led to what was later called the crisis of Chinese consciousness.

This idea of crisis of consciousness can be observed in the Diary of a Madman by Lu Xun, which was published in the New Youth magazine. In this piece, a person, assumingly a madman, believes that everyone wants to eat him and people around him eat each other. This can be read as a metaphor for Confucianism. “Barbaric” and destructive nature of Confucianism was exposed. Lu Xun was praised for his unconventional ideas and later became one of the faces of the New Cultural Movement. This movement shed light on the hunger of Chinese people for reform. As it happened earlier with Neoconfucianism, people were waiting for a change to occur. Marxism could offer this change, therefore Communist Party of China received support in the Chinese society.

In the beginning, CPC got funding and support from the Comintern. However, Comintern did not share the view of the party who believed that there would be a socialist revolution in China.

Two years earlier, Sun Yatsen starts another party, Kuomintang (KMT), or the Chinese Nationalist Party. In 1923, Comintern also offered help to Yatsen and his party, because having a not unified China did not fit in the interests of the Soviet Union and the international revolution that Comintern was pushing. Agents of the Comintern helped organize and consolidate the KMT. Comintern also instructed that the Communist Party of China cooperates with the KMT and together they formed the First United Front. Under the First United Front, all members of the CPC joined the KMT and could have no independent army, so they joined forces under the nationalist party. The overarching goal was to unify china: it was the plan that Sun Yatsen would go all over the country and defeat warlords to achieve this goal. Chinese communists were not happy but they did not have a lot of choice: Comintern made that choice for them. In February, in the middle of 1926, the KMT base in the south was consolidated and they were planning to move north.

In March 1925, Sun Yatsen died very shortly after the Reorganization Congress. After his death, his followers who were in Canton (Guangzhou) established a republican government. The basis of their whole government was based on the book of Yatsen, The Fundamentals of National Reconstruction. They have formed a single party state as a form of tutelage before democracy. After his death, the competition for power in the KMT ensued.

July 1926 – Chiang Kaishek leads the KMT. He had helped to establish the KMT base in South China and took the lead in commanding this northern expedition. Despite the doubts they did succeed in the first few months of the expedition. In 1927, KMT moved headquarters from Canton to Wuhan. Northern expedition reunited China for the first time since 1917 when Yuan Shikai died.

However, in 1927 there was a split in the KMT between the right-wing led by Chiang Kaishek, and the left-wing led by Wang Jingwei. Before that there was a competition between Wang Jingwei, Chiang  Kaishek, and Hu Hanmin. Left wing of the KMT was led by Wang Jingwei, who favored the United Front Strategy with the CPC. Right wing led by Hu Hanmin was opposed to any kind of alliance with the CPC. Kaishek initially was in the middle and allied with both at different points. There was a lot of internal strife, disunity.

November 1925 – leader of the right wing meets with the Western Hills group who claimed that they were legitimate successors to Sun Yatsen and declared themselves the central committee of the KMT. Their first resolution was to expel all leftists and members of the Communist party. This meeting led to another Congress in Canton in January 1926 which was convened by Wang Jingwei. During this conference, leaders reaffirmed their trust in Sun Yatsen, claimed to unite with countries that treat China as equal. More CPC leaders were elected to the central committee and Western Hills faction was denounced and expelled from the KMT.

20 March 1926 – Canton coup. Chiang Kaishek took advantage of the split and purged the Communist elements from the Nationalist Army on the claims that he wanted to maintain the party harmony but suspicions started to rise. Wang Jingwei threatened by this incident left China.

Similar power struggle was observed in Russia as well. For example, Trotsky was also expelled from the party. Stalin and Bukharin were leading the Comintern. Trotsky criticized its strategy in the aftermath of the Canton coup and advocated reforms, but Stalin and Bukharin disagreed. Because of the growing disagreement, Trotsky, along with Zinovyev, was expelled from the party in 1927.