Reinterpreting the Chinese Revolution: The Balance between Radical and Moderate Approaches, 1937–1945

Modern China ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 009770042097510
Author(s):  
Qingjun Liu
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
North China ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
Base Area ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Japanese Nationalism

The success of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by the end of the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) has generally been credited to its moderate approach to mobilizing the local peasantry through appeals to anti-Japanese nationalism and programs of social justice. However, the evidence presented in this article demonstrates that during late 1939 and early 1940 in some counties of the Southwest Shanxi Base Area and other major North China base areas the CCP abandoned its moderate approach and promoted a radical and violent class struggle. Based on its experiences in 1939–1940, the CCP created a model for mobilization in early 1942 that balanced radical and moderate approaches, which was then gradually applied to all Communist base areas. This article argues that the CCP relied on a combination of two contrasting and complementary approaches—radical and moderate—both of which played an indispensable role in its success by 1945.

The Chinese Communist Party to 1949

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Saich ◽  
Nancy Hearst
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
The Public ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Historical Periods

There is a vast array of materials available to assist in the study of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) before 1949. In China this is aided by the presence of a large number of officially employed researchers at party research centers and related archives. To earn their keep, these researchers have to put out publications. Availability of materials was boosted by the start of reforms in 1978 and preparations for the 1981 official party history. Given that, especially in the early years of reform, when expression of personal opinions could be dangerous, many of the released publications were documentary collections or chronologies. These came in several different varieties, based on either historical periods, particular events, or the lives of key individuals. These materials were complemented by memoirs of key figures who wanted to ensure that their version of history was in the public eye. This makes selection very difficult. Some of the works that follow are a must for students and scholars; others are personal favorites of the compilers and should be treated as exemplary of the types and varieties of sources that are available for the study of the CCP before 1949. More recently, materials from China have allowed researchers to conduct more detailed research on the social and economic transformations wrought by CCP presence and the difficulties the party had in maintaining local support. This has meant that, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, we have seen fewer monographs that attempt to paint the broader picture of the sweep of the CCP revolution. Instead, there are many fine-grained analyses of particular events or CCP activities in specific locales that reveal the extremely complex and multifaceted nature of the Chinese revolution.

The Anticlimax of an Ill-starred Sino-American Encounter

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-244
Author(s):  
XIXIAO GUO
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
North China ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Communication Lines

Late 1946 was a time of anticlimax in the history of Sino-American relations. For four years since the outbreak of the Pacific War, thousands of American servicemen had been in China rubbing shoulders with the Chinese. When victory finally came, more United States troops (mainly the marines of the Third Amphibious Corps) poured in, and the Chinese hailed them as heroes. In less than a year, however, as hostilities between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) closed in, the Americans were caught in the crossfire. Along the communication lines in North China, armed clashes between US and CCP forces escalated; in the cities, anti-American rallies became daily occurrences. The Chinese now became hostile to its erstwhile allies; wherever US servicemen went, they received boos from the locals. The rupture seemed to be irreversible: US forces started to evacuated, George Marshall, the presidential envoy to China, also ended his yearlong mediation, thus bringing the extraordinary intercourse between the two nations to an anticlimactic conclusion.

Lu Hsün and the Communist Party

1960 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 17-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet C. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Cultural Movements ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Lu Hsun ◽  
China Today ◽  
Cultural Hero

In terms of his impact on the young intelligentsia of China, particularly in the 1930s, and of the emotional symbolism as patriot and reformer with which his name is charged, Lu Hsün (1881–1936) was the most powerful figure in modern Chinese letters. For the last seven years of his life he was openly identified with Communist-led left-wing cultural movements in China. Today he is honoured by the Chinese Communist Party as the great cultural hero of the Chinese Revolution. His homes have become museums, jiis tomb a shrine. He is presented as a Communist in everything but name.

The Chinese Revolution and the Colonial Areas: The View form Yenan, 1937–41

1978 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 594-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven M. Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

The years 1937 to 1941 constitute the formative period in the Maoist leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), when Mao and his colleagues developed much of the political and military strategy that was to guide the Party through the anti-Japanese war and into the civil war period. This package of revolutionary prescriptions – loosely labelled the Yenan experience – is generally recognized to have had a powerful, lingering hold on the Party leadership.

Hua Fu, the Fifth Encirclement Campaign and the Tsunyi Conference

1970 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chi-His Hu
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

The Resolutions of the Tsunyi Conference published recently in The China Quarterly will not fail to attract the attention of all those who take an interest in the history of the Chinese revolution. The importance of this document is indeed evident. It constitutes one of the missing links, and not the least, in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. With this document serving as a junction, one can henceforth make one's way through the Juichin-Tsunyi-Yenan stretch of the “Chinese way to communism” if not with a great deal more comfort, then at least with a little less uneasiness.

scholarly journals Through the Past Darkly: Some New Sources on the Founding of the Chinese Communist Party

1985 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Saich
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
The Past ◽  
Differences Of Opinion ◽  
Liberal Attitude ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

The current stress of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party on the necessity of “seeking truth from facts” and the accompanying more liberal attitude to research have led to a re-vitalisation, as in other areas, of the study of party history. The portrayal of Mao Zedong in a more fallible light and the ending of the overemphasis on his role in the Chinese Revolution have led to the study, or re-study, of aspects of Chinese communist history in which Mao was not directly, or only marginally, involved, and to evaluations, or re-evaluations, of the contribution of other communist leaders. The contemporary view that the concept of “two-line struggle” has been overstressed in past historiography, particularly during the Cultural Revolution decade, has also helped historians in China to provide a more “objective” account of the role of other key figures. Differences of opinion no longer have to be castigated as outright opposition nor do later “failings” by individuals necessarily lead to a search by historians to expose a “counter-revolutionary” past throughout.

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