L13: Why Maoism Took Hold in China

AgendaObjective:To understand…1. How China became

communist.2. Competing

perspectives on why Maoism took hold in China.

Schedule: 1. Lecture2. Group Work

Homework:1. Continue to work

on pre-writing (1&2): Rolling Deadline

2. Remember:• Last Day to Turn

in Working Paper: Fri 4/5

• Unit Test: Mon 4/8

The Birth of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

• In an attempt to encourage communist revolutions in other coutnries, Lenin established an international communist organization, called the Communist International (or Comintern) in 1919.

• Comintern sends Soviet representatives to China whether they found they Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921. – Without the Soviet Union there

would have been no CCP!

The Communists Ally with the Guomindang

• Members of the CCP sought to overthrow the warlords running China and establish a communist regime.

• Members of the CCP began to argue that their chances for a successful revolution would increase if they were to align with the Guomindang (Nationalist Party, formerly the Revolutionary Alliance) and its leader Sun Yat Sen, because the group was popular among

the Chinese people.

The Communists Ally with the Guomindang

• Sun Yat Sen agreed to the alliance– Believed the communists to be a natural

ally since they shared with the Guomindang an anti-imperialist ideology.

– For more practical reasons, the Soviet Union was the nation to offer financial aid to Sun Yat Sen’s revolutionary efforts.

• However, two years after the alliance was formalized Sun Yat Sen died in 1925.

The Communist Ally with the Guomindang

• After Sun Yat Sen’s death, his close ally Chiang Kai Shek rose to the leadership position of the Guomindang.

• Chiang Kai Shek– 1887-1975– Military career– Founding member of

the Guomindang

The Guomindang-Communist Alliance Unifies China

• Under Chiang Kai Shek’s leadership, the alliance between the Guomindang and the Communists began to produce impressive results.

• The powerful warlords in the south of China were overthrown, and soon they were successful in overthrowing the warlords in the north of China.

• In March of 1927 The Guomindang-Communist alliance had successfully unified China.

• The era of Warlordism officially ended.

• In 1927 a new national Chinese government is established.

The Communist Purges• Chiang Kai Shek believed

that the communists threatened his control of this new national government, so he turned against them.

• In April of 1927, Chiang Kai Shek carried out a purge of thousands of Communists and suspected communists first in Shanghai and then throughout China.

• The killings drove most Communists from urban cities and into the countryside.

The Chinese Civil War 1927-1937

• Once in the countryside, CCP members began to launch counterattacks against Chiang Kai Shek’s army.

• They combined forces with various peasant rebels and were able to establish control over several areas of southern China.

• This marked the beginning of the Chinese Civil War which lasted from 1927-1937

The Chinese Civil War: The Long March

• In October 1934 a major communist attack on Guomindang forces failed and the the communists were forced into massive military retreat.

• Known as the Long March, communist troops were forced to retreat over 7,700 miles in one year.

• Of the 90,000 to 100,000 people who began the Long March, only 7,000 to 8,000 survived.

The Chinese Civil War: The Long March

• Along the way the Communist army took property and weapons from local landlords and recruited peasants and the poor into the party.

• During the Long March the communists were lead by Mao Zedong.

• Mao employed the tactic of guerilla warfare which allowed the communists to survive the Long March.

• Thus the march solidified Mao’s status as the undisputed leader of the CCP.

The Civil War Ends and the Sino-Japanese War Begins

• The Chinese Civil War ended in 1937 when the Japanese declared war on China and the communists and the Guomindang were forced to ally to fight against the Japanese until 1945.– This was the Second Sino-Japanese War

(1937-1945) and it was one of Japan’s many theaters during World War Two.

• The CCP did the majority of fighting against the Japanese.

• Those this alliance was in name only and significant fighting still occurred between the CCP and the Guomindang.

The Communists Take Power• Following the end of the Sino-Japanese War (and

World War Two) the communists received considerable weaponry and funding from the Soviet Union.

• In addition the CCP continued to gain followers in the countryside on the promise that the massive number of landless and starving Chinese peasants would be able to take farmland from their landlords. – For example, during one large campaign the CPC

mobilized 5,430,000 peasants to fight against the Guomindang

• The combination, gave the CCP manpower and weapons.

The Communists Take Power

• While the CCP was backed by the Soviet Union, the Guomindang was backed by the United States.

• They received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military supplies.

The War of Liberation• Soon an all out war

broke out again between the communists and the Guomindang in 1946.

• After much fighting, in 1949, the communists successfully defeated the Guomindang.

• After nearly twenty years of fighting, the CCP was victorious.

The People’s Republic of China• In 1949, the

People’s Republic of China is founded

• Leader is Chairman Mao

• Communism is the official state ideology

• Single-Party State

Why Did the Communist Come to Power?

• We know how Communism took hold in China, our goal today is to understanding why China became Communist.

• Two that end we will… – Break up into small discussion groups– Discuss and debate competing explanations for

why Mao came to power based on the sources you read for homework last night