The First United Front:
1923-1927
HI 168: Lecture 7
Dr. Howard Chiang
May 4th in Context
- Problems with the Communist story
- can the period between 1911 and 1949 be taken
seriously?
- how about 1949-1976 – a detour?
- obscures the rich variety of political alternatives in
the May Fourth era: anarchism, guild socialism,
feminism, fascism, and liberalism
- Many intellectuals adopted modest (rather than
extreme/radical) rejection of Confucianism
- Nationalism – take GMD more seriously
- 1923-27 – the First United Front
- the party to ‘win’ in the initial aftermath
- Ordinary Chinese did not identify with political parties
Birth of CCP
- Communist International, Comintern:
Gregory Voitinsky; Hendricus Sneevliet (Maring)
- First Congress of CCP in Shanghai, 23 July 1921, with
13 delegates:
Shanghai was represented by Li Da and Li Hanjun;
Beijing by Zhang Guotao and Liu Renjing; the Hunan
delegates were Mao Zedong and He Shuheng; Hubei
sent Dong Biwu and Chen Tanqiu; Wang Jinmei and
Deng Enming came from Shandong and Chen Gongbo
represented Guangdong.
- “bloc within” GMD
Rebirth of GMD
- Chinese Revolutionary Part (1914-19)
-> Chinese Guomindang (GMD) since 1919
- 1923: a joint statement by Sun and a Soviet
representative in Shanghai pledged Soviet assistance
for China’s national unification
- Soviet Comintern, Mikhail Borodin
- Membership:
CCP: 1921 – 300; 1925 – 1,500
GMD: 1922 – 150,000
Rebirth of GMD
- 1923: Chiang Kai-shek’s delegation to Moscow
- 1924: Huangpu (Whampos) Military Academy
- Chinese Labor Movement:
- May 30th Movement (1925)
- Sun Yat-sen died on March 12, 1925:
- Combined with the May 30th Movement, the
contingency of Sun’s death put great pressure on the
parties and increased the tensions among them
Chiang Kai-shek
The Northern Expedition
- National Revolutionary Army
- Warlord Situation:
- Feng Yuxiang of the Zhili faction ruled most of the
northern and northwestern regions
- Zhang Zuolin of the Fengtian faction ruled most of
the northern and northeast regions
- Yan Xishan ruled the province of Shanxi
- Wu Peifu had control of most of Hubei
- Sun Chuanfang claimed jurisdiction over Zhejiang,
Fujian, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Jiangsu (1925)
- Tang Jiyao controlled Yunnan
- Zhao Hengti ran Hunan
Northern Expedition
The White Terror
- Communists were useful to the commanders of the
National Revolutionary Army
- Chiang was much less sympathetic to the
Communists than Sun
- struggle for power – March 1927, Shanghai
- Red Purge, aka ‘White Terror’, into 1928 – an effort to
destroy the power of the left and especially the
Communists, who had attained so much power
through their bloc within party membership
- Final split in the united front: July 15, 1927
- GMD ordered CCP members to renounce their
Communist Party membership
- August 1928: NRA reached Beijing