History of China: GMD, CCP, and Japanese Expansion

- Japan was one of the foreign powers that had taken territory and demanded access to China's ports in the 1890s
- Japan was expanding their territory in the north of China

- In the 1930s, Japanese nationalists wanted to extend Japan's empire in China
- Japanese forces fought for military control in Manchuria
- Japan also attacked Shanghai in 1932 following boycotts of Japanese goods, but later withdrew.

- He had a military background
- His wife - Soong Mei-ling, the sister of Sun Yat Sen's wife (first president of republic of china, died 1925). Soong Mei-ling was educated in America, so her English was good and she was able to secure aid from the US
- He was skilled at political manipulation, pitting his subordinates against each other so no one individual could gain enough power to challenge his leadership

- Most of his support came from 2 places: business interests in the city, and landowners/wealthier peasants in the countryside.
- The people did not really support him because there were no elections, so they did not have popular mandate (support)

- JJ had overall military and political power
- He was Commander-in-Chief of the NRA (national revolutionary army) and Chairman of State Council
- He was leader of the GMD party

- Nationalism = aimed to remove the unequal treaties that China was forced to sign by Japan + the West
- Democracy = JJ distinguished between 'personal freedom' and 'national freedom', meaning that a democracy should not weaken the country by allowing too much personal freedom. Democracy was more of a vague long-term aspiration
- People's Livelihood = improving lives of the people, but JJ and Sun Yat Sen only offered vague ideas about land reform and decreasing taxation.

- A campaign led by Soong Mei-ling (JJ's wife) to get citizens to change habits
- mainly involved harassing citizens to stop smoking, spitting etc

- CCP founded in 1921 and funded by the USSR
- First United Front 1923
- End of First United Front in 1927, when JJ attacks Comms in Shanghai
- Long March 1934 = how the CCP survive the GMD attacks, travelling from Jiangxi to Yanan. Only 5000/80,000 make it

- The USSR fund both the GMD and CCP and consider the GMD as the most important revolutionary force, because China had a very small industrial class (industrial workers = 1%) and so USSR believed the chances for a Communist revolution was unlikely
- (USSR comm revolution = industrial workers, Mao = peasants)
- In 1923 Moscow instructed the CCP to join the GMD and operate as a Communist bloc within it, which was the First United Front

- In 1936 (start of time period) Mao was the dominant figure in the CCP in Yanan, because of his leadership in the Long March 1934. He removed all opposition to him by 1945
- In 1936, he was the Chairman of the Politburo

- In 1938 Zhang Guatao, one of his rivals, defected to the GMD
- Yan'an Rectification Campaign 1942 = Mao launched a purge of the remaining critics and doubters of his leadership within the party. This involved forcing party members to make self-criticisms (humiliation) and beating/torturing members.

- By 1943 Mao Zedong Thought was the official party ideology

- The ideological split = between those who wanted to follow orthodox Marxism (USSR) and those who wanted to adapt it for China
- The political split = between those who wanted to follow the USSR and those who wanted a more independent CCP

- Emphasis on importance of the peasants as a revolutionary class
- National self reliance = Mao wanted China to be free of foreign control, similar to the GMD's ideas. This included the USSR, as Mao did not want to be too reliant on them
- Continuing revolution = even after communists take power, Mao wanted to eliminate the class enemies (bourgeoisie and landlords)
- Class struggle = Mao believed that there was a danger that communists could eventually have too much power, so the party needed to be periodically purged (excluding himself)
- Mass mobilisation = Mao argued this was the communist's main task in government - to mobilise the people and fill them with revolutionary zeal, which would motivate them to work harder

- CCP's long-term aim was to confiscate land from the wealthy landlords and richer peasants, but it also recognised that this would alienate many of its' potential allies in the Sino-Japanese war.
- So they took a more moderate approach because of their United Front with the GMD