China Part One - Victory of the Chinese Communist Party

This is a four part history of modern China, written for Socialist Party branch meetings in the South East. As well as reading the following, please watch this video which contains many interviews with participants and lots of historical footage of the events described below (click image to go to video).

China Part One - Victory of the Chinese Communist Party

As with a lot of countries modern Chinese history can be traced back to its early contact with Imperialism. By Imperialism I mean the expansion of powerful capitalist nations searching for larger markets across the globe. This contact set off the decline of the Chinese Imperial Qing regime starting from the early 1800's. Since 1644 the Qing dynasty had ruled China, but the regime could not compete with the superior technology and work techniques of the 19^th Century western powers. These powers forced China to accept opium as payment for tea and silk, waging wars in 1842 and 1858 to impose this unequal and socially corrosive trading relationship.

The backwardness of this dynasty was revealed time and again by a rising tide of pressures. Foreign influence was a massive pressure, with British, German, US and later Japanese imperialism hungering for a slice of the significant resources and markets within China. After the Opium wars and the severe blow to the moral prestige of China in the Sino-Japanese war Chinese trading ports were established along the South East coast with the foreign powers racing to establish themselves. Foreign capital rushed into China and the profits began to rush out. The weakness of the government and the social dislocation of the weakened economy and depreciated currency sparked revolts against imperial authority most notably the Taiping rebellion 1850-1864, where large sections of the elite aimed to overthrow the Qing regime. But the revolt also sparked a wider social revolt with the radicalised peasantry pushing for action against the wealthy landowners. This alienated the support of the wealthier classes and while Imperialism initially hedged its bets over who to support in the conflict, they came down on the side of the Qing regime, recognising the opium trade as the most profitable trade at that time and fearful of the Taiping promises to abolish it.

Taiping Rebellion

These two factors need to be remembered when looking at Chinese history: the pressure of imperialism against the backward political and economic systems of China and the internal weakness of the possessing classes from transforming that situation. In comparison Japanese modernisation was sparked by US imperialism, which triggered forces within Japanese society already itching to proceed along the lines of capitalist development. In China these features did not exist, the predominantly agricultural society was worked by peasants and the main power besides the state was that of the landlords. The wealth achieved by native Chinese was either historically that of the landlords or was on the edges of the imperialist trade, with significant wealth accumulated by merchants, but that wealth was invested into land instead of production. Industrial development took place in the late 1800's but it was linked with a thousand threads to imperialism. It suited imperialism to bolster this social arrangement, especially considering that no native force emerged to try and alter it.

Efforts to modernise the imperial system in 1898 in an attempt to emulate the Japanese development were frustrated by resistance from the severely backward imperial system. The reforms were selective in their approach, favouring only aspects of Western modernisation, while attempting to maintain the overall state structure. However it was met with the sluggish resistance of the system which provided an opportunity for the Empress Dowager to effectively seize power and reverse these attempts at reform from above.

Empress Dowager

The dynasty fell in 1912 as a result of the Xinhai revolution and military revolts against the Qing state. The two-year old emperor Pu-Yi was forced to abdicate and Yuan Shikai a Qing General, established a government. He failed to consolidate a central state power and submitted to Japanese demands for greater imperialist influence over the Chinese economy. He attempted to name himself emperor but could not command the unity of the nation. After his government fell various attempts to consolidate a nationwide state structure fell apart and power fell increasingly to the provinces and the local warlords.

Pu-Yi

Yuan Shikai

A nationalist party headed by Sun Yat-Sen called the Guomintang or KMT had been founded with the aim of unifying the nation. While it was not a movement for socialism, extensive links were made between the KMT and the Russian Soviet government. This was because the KMT were a relatively progressive force within Chinese society; the forming of a nation-state advances capitalist industrial development, turning competitive powers outwards instead of inwards and encouraging the development of large-scale industrial workplaces, and a potentially revolutionary working-class. In the face of the national humiliations suffered after the First World War where the Allies gave previously German-held sections of China to Japan, a movement known as the May Fourth movement erupted in 1919. It encouraged a fresh questioning by students and intellectuals and led to the founding of the CCP in 1921. The Bolsheviks advised the CCP to join the KMT, recognising it as the most progressive movement within China, and Russia provided organisational and material support to the KMT who established a military academy in Canton.

Sun Yat-Sen

Attempts to establish a nation-state have historically been led by the bourgeoisie but the peasantry and workers form the foot soldiers, with their interests side-lined after victory. While it is a progressive task insofar as it hastens the development of capitalism and its counterpart, the working-class, in the age of imperialism where the overwhelming power of rival advanced capitalist nations loomed across the continent, it complicated matters. On the one hand industrial development had occurred in very small but concentrated and as a result economically important areas of the country. Secondly the bourgeoisie was intricately tied on the one hand to imperialism, making the assertion of an independent state unsure under their leadership, and on the other the bourgeoisie were tied to the landlords. How could they mobilise the support of the workers and peasants if they were unwilling to shift an inch on the questions which motivated the workers and peasants which cancel peasant debts, redistribute the land, reduce working hours, raise pay and improve workplace conditions and so on. Under these circumstances the seeds of class conflict within the CCP-KMT camp would not take long to flower.

That conflict emerged when the KMT under its leader Chiang Kai-Shek, led a military movement to defeat the warlords and finally to unify the country. This sparked mass movements of workers and peasants who rose up in the rural and urban areas to fulfil their own interests and address their own grievances. Brutal civil war between peasants and landlords raged in the countryside and the main cities saw mass strikes and demonstrations by the workers with their own revolutionary committees of power starting to form. While the peasant revolts were scattered but fierce, it was these workers organisations that held the potential to lead society in the same way the Soviets in Russia had been the instrument of revolution in 1917.

Chiang Kai-Shek

Strikes in 1927

This would lead to a clash, but the CCP remained yoked to the KMT, unable to raise its own demands, and as a result giving no independent lead to the working-class. This policy was resisted by the majority of the CCP leadership, but had been imposed on the youthful party by the Comintern which was increasingly coming under the conservative leadership of the bureaucracy, headed by Stalin. As world revolution drew further away, exhaustion, destruction and economic backwardness in Russia created a reaction against the push that was necessary t defend genuine socialism, towards world revolution. The bureaucracy that came to rule was focussed on stability and strongly counselled against revolutionary movements abroad, and dressed Chiang Kai-Shek up as a 'comrade' when only weeks after accepting the KMT as a sympathising section to the Comintern in March 1926 Chiang Kai-Shek led his troops in committing a massacre against the working-class in Canton. 

Russian Left Opposition 1927

Stalin 1927

News of this was covered up and one year later the same thing happened in Shanghai and finally in Wuhan under the supposed left-wing of the KMT. This debate was very important for the battle between Stalin and Trotsky, as it was in the run up to the December 1927 CPSU congress where Trotsky and the forces he had organised against Stalin and bureaucracy were defeated. As well as covering up the betrayal, Stalin ordered a futile Communist uprising in Canton which only resulted in a further massacre and weakening of the CCP. Suffice to say the blame for this was placed onto the national leadership of the CCP, not the Comintern. In total, 35,000 CCP members were killed in 1927. On the bones of this defeat for the working class, the KMT, financed by capitalists and armed by imperialism, formed a government in Nanking.

Massacre of Communists and workers 1927

This regime did nothing to alleviate rural poverty and inequality, did not cancel debts or redistribute land, and working conditions worsened. In the face of Japanese imperialism the KMT failed to act, preferring to retreat, sparking mass anger and splits within the KMT itself. This was the party of the Chinese bourgeoisie, and it existed as a mass force of corruption and enrichment which performed none of the tasks required of it. After 1927 some of the Communists retreated to the countryside, eventually, under Mao Tse-Tung's leadership, establishing a so-called Soviet base in Kiangsi where land was distributed and an administration was formed under the leadership of the communists. They formed an army from the peasantry which was the ultimate power. This was not a force based on the democracy of a workers movement, but on the scattered and largely powerless peasantry, ensuring the unchallenged leadership of the CCP. This group was not in touch with Russia, and the official party remained in the urban areas until 1931 when repression forced it to flee. Their campaigns had been inspired by the lurch to the left by Stalin when he launched the 5 year plan and collectivisation of agriculture in the soviet union. Prior to this his policy had been to accommodate the richer peasants, but they were forming a force that challenged the regime, so Stalin turned to the left and attacked the entire peasantry as a basis on which to brutally industrialise the country. This meant a reversal of the previously cautious policies, and like in the Canton uprising, it meant the needless massacres of Communists. The Communists attracted towards Trotsky's ideas remained in the cities and built patiently amongst the working-class, trying to form a base of opposition to the Chiang Kai-Shek regime in preparation for the next inevitable revolutionary upturn after the defeat of 1927 had passed. They nevertheless faced severe repression from the KMT.

Mao Tse-Tung

Red Army

Chiang Kai-Shek spent massive resources trying to oust the Red Army base in Kiangsi, eventually succeeding on his fifth attempt with a million troops in 1933. The retreat was a huge feat, later known as the Long March, and as a result Mao gained supremacy as the leader of the CCP against Soviet backed rivals. A new base was established in Yenan, where land reform was implemented and the Red Army forces replenished.

Map of the Long March

Mao on the Long March

In 1935 Stalin's line changed again, calling for the Cps to work in a Popular Front of all parties against fascism, including bourgeois parties. This meant another CCP-KMT alliance against Japan which continued to attack China and aimed at colonisation. Invariably the Popular Front meant lowering CP demands in order to attract these other forces. A serious split in 1936 where one of the KMT generals arrested Chiang Kai-Shek calling for national resistance to Japan and land reform, but the CCP, under Stalin's directions secured Chiang's release instead of pressing the advantage. After this missed opportunity in 1937, when Japanese attacks intensified, the CCP agreed to the following conditions of alliance,

1) Dissolve the Red Army. 2) Dissolve the soviet republic in Shensi and other regions. 3) Stop all communist propaganda, and 4) Abandon the class struggle.

While the Red Army no longer stood for confiscation of the landlords’ land and abandoned their anti-KMT propaganda, nevertheless the CCP retained organisational, political and military independence. While this meant relative independence from Russia's directions, Mao merely put forward a Chinese version of Stalinism that victory would result in controlled capitalism, followed by state capitalism and thereafter an economy modelled on the Soviet Union. Stalin favoured the KMT and from 1937 war supplies were sent from the Soviet Union to the KMT, not the CCP.

Japanese atrocities in Nanking, 1937

The alliance was itching to become a civil war between the CCP and KMT, with the KMT army holding back from major clashes with the Japanese and on several occasions attacking CCP units and the CCP also refusing to engage in battles that would sacrifice troops. Stalin’s entire emphasis – the survival of his own regime, devoid of any revolutionary methods – was a constant brake on Chinese events. In April 1941, Russia signed a non-aggression treaty with Japan. The CCP made no criticism and was formally bound by this agreement not to attack Japanese forces. But three months later, when Germany invaded Russia, the CCP was ordered by Moscow to resume the fight against Japan. Nevertheless by the end of the war the popular prestige of the CCP had risen greatly as a result of their calls to fight the Japanese as well as their revival of the slogan of land reform. On the other hand the KMT were corrupt and unpopular. Stalin continued to support the KMT after the war while the US bent over backwards to ensure the Japanese surrendered to the KMT and not to CCP troops. With the decline of British, French and Japanese imperialism in the region, and the rise of Soviet influence after success in the war, the US was the only imperialist force left.

Mao and Stalin

Stalin transferred Manchuria to the KMT (after stealing all the factories) but supplied some arms to the CCP in a gesture of unity. The CCP had also benefited from Japanese arms seized in the conflict, it was growing into a mass army. Stalin signed a treaty of friendship with the KMT in August 1945 and along with the US pushed for negotiations between the KMT and CCP. After WWII the Soviet union had emerged much stronger, and it was decided with the Allies that Eastern Europe would 'belong' to Stalin, while he would, via the CPs, assist in reasserting the bourgeoisie in countries outside of Eastern Europe. In France and Italy the CPs had joined coalition governments and acted as a break on the working-class movements, while in Greece civil war raged. On the one hand Chiang Kai-Shek favoured a bloody solution to the communists not a coalition, and Mao had no intention of being sacrificed for the Soviet Union, recognising the opportunity to overthrow the KMT. By 1946 the civil war restarted.

At the start, Chiang enjoyed a crushing military superiority. He had 500 air-planes with US pilots, while the CCP had no planes. Chiang also had tanks and thousands of US advisers and technicians. In total, US imperialism gave six billion dollars in aid to the KMT in the period 1946-49. In other words, the KMT’s defeat in the war cannot be attributed to military reasons. Their army also kept winning, until the summer of 1947. The CCP victory was political, its troops were renowned for their role in the war against Japan. Now the masses saw the KMT undo all the social gains in those areas which they reoccupied from the CCP. The KMT government was also correctly held responsible for the great famine of 1942-43, in which 2 million died. It was also tainted by the rampant corruption, speculation and hyperinflation which gripped China after the war.

Chiang Kai-Shek with US General Stilwell

In the first year, the PLA avoided battles, while spreading the agrarian revolution in the countryside. On the basis of land reform, the PLA recruited 1.6 million new soldiers in Manchuria alone. Support for the CCP in the “liberated areas” was massive, because of the land reform and the general revolutionary change in conditions. In 1947, this laid the basis for a turning point in the civil war – Mao'’s peasant guerilla army started to confront the forces of the KMT.

The KMT collapsed in the face of the social revolution that ran parallel with the war. Mass desertions took place and entire military units disintegrated. There was an enormous power vacuum in the country. Imperialism had been forced to retreat, and not even the US could seriously consider an invasion. There was no capitalist party able to show a way out, to unify the country or solve the land question. The KMT was a spent force. The only force seriously aiming for power was the PLA and it steadily won the conflict after 1947. But the victory was of a peasant army led by the bureaucratised CCP it was not a victory of democratic workers’ councils or genuine soviets. There were important strikes in 1947 and in early 1948, marking the beginnings of a re-emergence of the working class, but with the entrance of the PLA into the cities, strikes were repressed. On this basis the CCP came to power in 1949 and the KMT fled to Taiwan.

Red Army marches into Beijing 1949

Mao proclaims the People's Republic of China, 1949

The next talk will look at the CCP in power, the policies it attempted, and why events went the way they did. The future development of the CCP in power explains a lot about the prospects of revolution in one country, but also about the impossibility of economic development outside of a non-capitalist pathway.