THE OVERTHROW OF THE MANCHU DYNASTY

By the beginning of the 20th century China was in a desperate condition,
there was the feeling that the dynasty should be overthrown so China
could be westernized and democracy introduced.

In October 1911, the dynasty was overthrown in a revolution known as
the Double Ten Revolution. A republic was created. Most provinces
declared themselves independent.

In November 1911, delegates from the “independent” provinces gathered
in Nanjing to declare the creation of a Chinese Republic.
Dr. Sun Yixian (a political exile) was invited to
be China’s president.

The imperial government wanted, Yuan Shikai, the influential
general of the Northern Army to suppress the rebellion.

But he arranged a deal with Sun Yixian. Sun agreed for
Yuan to be the 1st president in exchange of the end of the
Manchu rule. On February, 12th /1912 Pu Yi abdicated.

Yuan ruled China as a military dictator from 1912 until 1915. He
wanted to declare himself as an emperor in 1916, he lost the
military support. He died three months later.

Sun Yixian had set up the GMD in 1912 under the San Min Zhu Yi
(Three People’s Principles).

A key cause of the civil war was the lack of unity, with the death
of Yuan, China lost the only figure that had maintained some
degree of unity.

China broke up into small provinces, each controlled by a warlord
and his private army.

The warlords ran their territories independently, organizing and
taxing people in their domains.

As warlords extended their power and wealth by expanding
their territories, it was the peasant who suffered their
continuous wars.

The warlord period (1916 – 1928) increased the sense of
humiliation felt by many Chinese, coupled with the desire of
getting rid of the foreign presence.
MAY, 4TH MOVEMENT

Students led a mass demonstrations against the warlords, traditional
Chinese culture and the Japanese.

The hostility had been ignited by the Treaty of Versailles, in which
Germany’s former concessions in Shandong Province had been given to
Japan..

China joined the allies in WWI only to be humiliated by them.
COMMUNISTS AND NATIONALISTS

When Sun died in 1925, the GMD had made little progress fulfilling its
“Three Principles”, due to the lack of power beyond the south and the
alliances with the warlords.

Jiang Jieshi, a general who had had military training before WWI in
Japan and the in the USSR (the Soviets had begun to invest in the
GMD) took the power of the GMD.

Another revolutionary party had emerged during the warlord period, the
Communist Party of China (CPC) officially set in 1921.

Its members were mainly intellectuals, due to the
lack
of
military
strength, the CPC and the GMD agreed to fight together against the
warlords.

They formed the FUF (First United Front) in 1922. The “Three People’s
Principles” was often called “socialism” that’s why the Comintern was
convinced this was a party they could helped.
THE NORTHERN EXPEDITION

It was an expedition in 1926 to crush the warlords of central and
northern China. This operation was a great success.

The Northern expedition gained territory rapidly. By December the cities
of Fuzhou, Wuhan, and Hangzhou had been captured and the
CPC/GMD forces were converging on Nanjing and Shanghai.

Rifts were beginning to appear in the coalition. While Sun had generally
supported the CPC, Jiang was much more mistrustful of its intentions.

One of the major reasons of success of the FUF was the communist
activism. The CPC was growing in power.

Jiang needed to demonstrate his leadership of the GMD and he decided
to get rid of the communist bloc within the GMD.

He gained support of the landlords, warlords, secret societies, criminal
organizations and Western organizations that were still in China.

In the spring of 1927 the “White Terror” began, the right wing of the GMD
attacked union members, communists and peasants associations, the
FUF collapsed. Jiang was determined to eliminate communism in China.
The roots of the Civil War were set.

The CPC central committee encouraged Mao to mount a peasant
insurrection against the GMD in Hunan, but the task was too much.

Mao was easily suppressed by the GMD armies, so he decided to move
his small group to Jingganshan and later to Jiangxi province.

Jiang’s major concern was the elimination of the
communists as a force in China, which would allow him to
establish control all over the country.

Jiang’s fifth extermination campaign was more successful.
He changed tactics and imposed an economic blockade of
the Jiangxi soviet.

The change in the GMD’s tactics began to work, and a
disagreement occurred within the communists ranks. Mao
was no longer perceived to be the leader. The communists
were forced to retreat in the Long March (1934). They
marched for about a year.