Chapter 11: Warlords, the CCP, and the Guomindang
During the 1920s, nearly all Chinese who were aware of the broader world realized that warlords and imperialists were the two greatest threats to society. They differed, however, regarding how best to improve the situation. Moreover, much of the discussion of politics and social theory that took place during the 1920s and 30s was little more than talk. Pragmatic, battled-hardened men held the reins of actual power, and appeals to the broader social good rarely had an impact on them. Following the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912, it would take approximately four more decades before China would be re-united under a single government. This chapter examines some of the major political developments in China between 1919 and 1937.
One of the spin-offs from the May Fourth Movement was the creation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the usual historical narrative, Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu were the founders of the CCP. Li, however, played only a minimal role. He was an intellectual at Beijing University who was sympathetic to socialism and was well read in Marxist theory. Chen played more of a direct role. In May, 1920, Li recommended that two Comintern agents, Grigori Voitinsky and Yang Mingzhai, meet with Chen, who was in Shanghai at the time. At the meeting, Grigori and Yang provided Chen with practical advice regarding party organization and logistics. Later the same month, a small group of like-minded people named Chen secretary of the provisional central committee of their party. The core group gradually expanded its activities, setting up front organizations, starting a monthly magazine, and setting up party groups in several cities.
Mao Zedong 毛澤東, for example, founded a Communist group in Hunan. Mao had originally been a gradualist, advocating reform within the established order. Owing to frustration following the May Fourth Demonstrations, however, Mao became increasingly radicalized. Of particular importance in the early years of the CCP was a group of Chinese students in France. These students included Zhou Enlai 周恩來 and Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平, who would later play major roles in the CCP. Xiang Jingyu 向警予 was another member of this group. Often regarded as China’s first feminist, Xiang was a vigorous advocate of women’s rights. While in France, she contracted a “revolutionary marriage” with another student. The main part of their marriage ceremony was being photographed together holding a copy of Marx’s Das Kapital. After returning to China, Xiang was active in organizing women factory workers, but her revolutionary role was cut short in 1928 when she was executed at age 33.
Delegates from Communist organizations throughout China met in Shanghai in July, 1921 formally to create the Chinese Communist Party. Their meeting had to be held in secret, and they had to move their location several times during the meeting process. Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu were unable to attend the meeting, and Voitinsky had returned to the Soviet Union, so the three pioneers of the CCP were not present for its formal inauguration. Chen, however, was elected secretary-general in abstentia. At this time, the party was very small, consisting of only about 60 members throughout China.
In 1922, the CCP decided formally to ally itself with Sun Zhongshan’s (Sun Yatsen) Guomindang (GMD). From the CCP perspective, this alliance was to be temporary. The GMD and CCP would united to fight warlords and feudalism, after which time (according to Leninist theory), the proletarian masses would rise up to complete the final phase of the revolution.
During 1922 and 1923, Sun struggled to hold his GMD together and to come up with a viable strategy for national unification. In the larger picture, Sun envisioned a 3-stage revolution. The first stage was military conquest in the interest of re-unification. Next Sun envisioned a period of “tutelage” for China’s people, presumably under Sun’s direction. Finally, after the tutelage period had ended (however long that might be), China’s people would rule themselves as a constitutional democracy. Although Sun’s GMD was beset by many organizational problems and although Sun never formally embraced Marxism, the CCP regarded the GMD as the only viable ally in its revolutionary struggle. For his part, Sun found the promise of Soviet financial and logistical aid very appealing. In January, 1923, Soviet diplomat Adolf Joffe and Sun issued a cautious statement that suggested a CCP-GMD alliance. Behind the scenes, Sun allowed CCP members to join the GMD in return for Soviet aid. Both Sun and the CCP regarded the alliance as provisional, and it was always awkward. Each group expected to be able to use the other for its ends and then move on when the time was right. In 1923, the CCP was still very small, with approximately 300 members throughout China.
Of the two Communist pioneers in China, Chen Duxiu opposed the CCP-GMD alliance on the grounds that it would confuse class-based political organizations and that the GMD would not be a reliable partner in practical terms. Li Dazhao favored the alliance. One reason was that Li had come to see China’s troubles increasingly in racial terms. He therefore gave priority to Chinese solidarity against white imperialism.
In the fall of 1923, the Comintern sent Mikhail Borodin to the GMD base in Guangzhou. Sun gave him the title of special advisor and permitted Borodin to reorganize the GMD. Borodin’s reforms had the effect of strengthening Sun’s leadership of the party and party discipline in general. Borodin also systematized GMD recruitment efforts and its marketing campaign, i.e., its propaganda campaign. Especially important was the creation of a military academy at Whampoa 黃埔 (Huangpu in Mandarin), an island ten miles south of Guangzhou. Military training began there in May, 1924, with the goal of producing officers for a GMD army. Soviet experts supervised the training, and Jiang Jieshi (Jiang Kai-shek) headed the academy. Jiang himself had received military training in the Soviet Union, and an early nickname of his was “the red marshal.” Between October 1924 and February 1925, Jiang led the academy’s cadets into several battles against local armies in and around Guangzhou. Jiang’s forces won each of these battles decisively, and the GMD began to appear as a potentially powerful force in Chinese politics.
Despite the strong Soviet influence at Whampoa and in the GMD in general, the majority of the academy’s cadets were not Communists. Moreover, most became intensely loyal to Jiang. These cadets became the core of Jiang’s elite military forces, the ones he kept near to himself during the turbulent events of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.
In March, 1925, Sun Zhongshan died in Beijing. Soon Jiang took over the GMD. As Jiang set about consolidating his hold over the GMD and strengthening its military forces, events in north and central China put pressure on him to act. In the fall of 1924, Zhang Zuolin, the warlord of Manchuria sent an army southward, which captured territory around Beijing and as far south as the Yangzi River. In 1926, Zhang formed an alliance with his former rival, Wu Peifu, who controlled extensive territory in the central parts of China. Both Zhang and Wu, took strong anti-Communist stances. If Jiang was to play a major role in unifying China, these events suggested that he would need to act soon.
In the meantime, leftist elements within the GMD had grown to the point where they appeared to many observers to consist of a majority. Indeed, in 1925, Guangzhou became known as the “red city,” and many of its business leaders relocated to Shanghai or Beijing. The GMD military, however, remained firmly anti-Communist, and in March, 1926, Jiang asserted himself by declaring martial law in Guangzhou. Jiang proceeded to suppress Communist elements within the GMD, but he stopped short of repudiating the GMD alliance with the Soviet Union. Jiang negotiated new terms for the CCP-GMD alliance that gave him the upper hand and limited Communist involvement in governing the party. He then began plans to send his army northward.
In 1925, the GMD army became known as the National Revolutionary Army. It looked large on paper because its ranks had swollen from an influx of soldiers from the defeated armies of various warlords. In general, however, warlord soldiers were unreliable. The presence of large numbers of poorly-trained, unreliable soldiers would plague the GMD far into the future. Eventually it would lead to Jiang’s defeat by the CCP and his flight to Taiwan.
Planning for the Northern Expedition, as Jiang’s move north came to be called, took place from the end of 1925 well into 1926. In May, 1926 a northern warlord agreed to put his army under GMD command (not out of lofty principles, but to protect himself from the attacks of other warlords). General mobilization of the Northern Expedition began in July, 1926. The GMD pushed northward in three lines of advance: one along the coast toward Shanghai, another in a line from Guangzhou to Nanjing, and a third toward Wuhan. The GMD armies suffered some setbacks and heavy casualties, but they were generally successful in reaching their initial objectives by the end of 1926. At that point, the GMD was still far short of conquering all of China, but it had made impressive gains.
Despite his anti-imperialist rhetoric, Jiang guaranteed the safety of foreigners in each of the cities the GMD conquered. GMD gains were such that major foreign governments began to consider extending formal diplomatic recognition to the GMD. In January 1927, a dispute broke out between Borodin and the leftist elements in the GMD and Jiang regarding strategy. Jiang wanted to attack Shanghai from two sides, and Borodin wanted to keep moving north, attack Beijing, and then move south-east toward Shanghai. There were other issues involved in this dispute, and at one point Borodin and his supporters publicly insulted Jiang. A major change was in the offing.
We are not sure of the details, but circumstantial evidence points to Jiang making deals with the anti-leftist Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin and with Japanese forces to protect his flanks as Jiang moved to conquer Shanghai. While he controlled Beijing, Zhang raided the Soviet embassy and arrested Li Dazhao, who had taken refuge there. Zhang then hanged Li and nineteen of his companions. The main point is that Zhang was fiercely anti-Communist, and Jiang was moving toward cooperation with Zhang.
As the GMD forces advanced on Shanghai in February, CCP leaders such as Zhou Enlai began organizing factory workers. These workers launched strikes on several occasions, and, despite warlord suppression of these strikes, morale was high. The Shanghai business community was not amused. The Green Gang (Qingbang 青幫) of Shanghai was closely allied with the business community and often provided it with thugs to break up strikes and assassinate labor leaders. Moreover, the Green Gang had longstanding close ties to Jiang Jieshi. The Green Gang was a classic underworld organization, controlling drugs, prostitution, and gambling. In late 1926, Jiang had begun a series of negotiations with the business community of Shanghai, and, indirectly, with the Green Gang via the chief detective of the French Concession. Many of Shanghai’s wealthiest Chinese residence, by the way, lived in the foreign concessions.
At the same time, GMD forces in the Wuhan area had become radicalized under Borodin, and were on the verge of breaking with Jiang. Stalin, however, owing mainly to domestic disputes with his rival Leon Trotsky, refused to authorize a CCP break with the GMD. Thus, the CCP in Shanghai launched a major strike toward the end of March, 1927 that nearly paralyzed the city. As many as 600,000 workers were involved, and a well-armed workers militia of about 2,700 also came into being. The next day, GMD soldiers began arriving in Shanghai, and Jiang entered the city at the end of March. He reassured the nervous foreign community that it was safe. He then prepared the groundwork for his plans, consulting with business leaders, Green Gang leaders, and prominent civic leaders. Jiang and his supporters struck at 4am on April 12. Jiang’s aim was to destroy the city’s labor unions. Green Gang militias and GMD troops, sometimes aided by foreign concession forces, broke up labor organizations. They often used deadly force, and the crackdown continued for several weeks. In the end, city authorities declared all labor activities and strikes illegal.
Nevertheless, the CCP-GMD alliance continued, at least in theory. Stalin apparently hoped that the Wuhan wing of the GMD, which was clearly more left-leaning in its politics than was Jiang, would eventually rise to prominence. Mao Zedong, meanwhile, had been serving as head of the GMD’s Peasant Movement Training Institute. It was in the context of events of 1926 and 1927 that he began to realize something important: revolution from the ground up in China could most likely be accomplished via peasant uprisings. In other words, although standard Marxist theory saw urban factory workers as the backbone of the proletarian revolution, Mao realized that in China it was rural peasants who could accomplish this task. This insight would help Mao defeat Jiang during the years 1945-1949.
On December 11, 1927, also owing to the Stalin –Trotsky dispute, the Comintern ordered the CCP in Guangzhou (the former “red city”) to rise up, seize the city, and make it into a workers’ commune. It lasted two days. GMD forces and their supporters counterattacked with a vengeance, slaughtering all CCP members and all workers who had joined the commune (or who were suspected as such). The streets ran red with blood in some areas, and the CCP-GMD alliance was over—at least for the time being. Following the Guangzhou insurrection, Jiang sought to destroy the CCP and its sympathizers.
The Northern Expedition was still underway, or at least it should have been. After Jiang entered Shanghai, the expeditions stalled for want of funds. Jiang resorted to a variety of strong-armed techniques to raise money, and he even unleashed a reign of terror aimed at forcing Shanghai’s wealthiest citizens to contribute funds to the GMD. It is important to bear in mind that although Jiang generally sided with business interests and the wealthy, he was no ideologue. His aim was to stay in power by whatever means were necessary. Sometimes those means clashed with the interests of elite Chinese. Indeed, one important reason for the collapse of Jiang’s armies in 1949 was that wealthy Chinese completely gave up on Jiang after he launched disastrous financial policies that caused the currency to collapse.
At the start of 1928, Jiang appointed his brother-in-law, T. V. Soong, as finance minister, and Soong managed to create enough revenue flows to get the Northern Expedition back on the road. Jiang’s next target was Zhang Zuolin’s base in Beijing. At first the fighting went well for the GMD but Japanese soldiers intervened. Japan had its eyes of Manchuria, and was trying to court Zhang. Japanese commanders told Zhang that if he were to retreat to Manchuria, Japanese forces would protect him. Seeing no alternative, Zhang abandoned his base in Beijing. But Japanese agents in Manchuria assassinated Zhang near Mukeden in June, 1928. Why? Because Japanese commanders did not speak with one voice. The decision to offer protection to Zhang came from the central government in Tokyo. The decision to kill him came from local commanders of Japan’s Guangdong Army. It will not be until 1936 that major conflict between factions of Japan’s army would end. One result of Zhang Zuolin’s assassination was that his son Zhang Xueliang became fiercely anti-Japanese. His hatred of Japan would prompt him to ally with the GMD. By the end of 1928, Zhang was flying the GMD flag. The vast majority of China was, at least ostensibly, under GMD control.
After 1928, Jiang worked to consolidate his control. He set up his capital in Nanjing. Military campaigns continued, with GMD forces attempting to eradicate the CCP. Although they occasionally scored some successes, GMD armies were generally too slow and unimaginative to finish off the CCP. In the most dramatic example, in the fall of 1934, GMD forces had nearly surrounded the Jiangxi Soviet, the major CCP outpost. Leaving many of the soviet’s residents behind to face brutal deaths, the CCP army left their base in October 1934 and began a long, winding march. Starting in SE China, they finally arrived in Yan’an, deep in the mountains of NW China a month later, in October 1935. All the while, they fought off GMD attacks and fought the elements in rugged mountains. Of the roughly 80,000 soldiers that started this “Long March,” about 8,000–9,000 survived it. The Long March became legendary in the lore of the CCP. Its veterans tended to play leading roles in the early years of the People’s Republic of China. The Long March also established Mao Zedong as the leader of the CCP.
Jiang and Mao continued to fight each other into the summer of 1937. At that time, Japanese advances could no longer be ignored. After full-scale war broke out between Japan and China, the GMD and CCP once again formed an alliance, called the “United Front.” There was no coordination between the two groups, but the stopped fighting each other and started fighting Japan. After the Pacific War ended in 1945, the GMD–CCP fight resumed.