The Chinese Revolution

In 1938, after the Battle of Wuhan, Wang Jingwei left Chongqing and the Republic of China team in Chongqing for Hanoi. He negotiated with Japanese officials and eventually set up a puppet regime know as the Wang Jingwei Regime and also as the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China. It was almost totally under Japanese domination, with little autonomy. Wang Jingwei's background, i...

Japan controlled Taiwan as a colony from 1895 to 1945. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese language education and publications stopped and the Imperial Subject Movement tried to Japanize residents of Taiwan. The Baojia system was helpful in controlling the locals and confiscating grain during the war. The Taiwanese were mobilized to support the Japanese War Effort and experienced conscrip...

By the early 1940s, the Communists in Yan’an were feeling relatively secure. The Japanese advance in north China had not reached that area. The Sino-Japanese War and the United Front meant that Chiang Kai-shek’s main concern had been Japan and not the Communist Party. The Nationalist Government in China even funded the Communists in Yan’an. Thousands of recruits flocked to Yan'an. C...

For ten months in 1938, Hankou in Wuhan was the center of China's Second United Front and defense against the Japanese invasion. Artistic expression, political parties and free speech all blossomed. Neither the KMT nor the Communist Party fully controlled the city and a variety of generals, thinkers and artists came together to defend against Japanese aggression. Wuhan was under the control of Gen...

The treasures of the National Palace Museum, originally the Forbidden City, followed China's path. They escaped the invading Japanese by leaving Beijing, first for Shanghai, then Nanjing and then followed southern, central and northern routes to Sichuan and safety. The Chinese government followed a similar path, as did countless Chinese individuals and families. Japanese bombers followed these ref...

On July 7, 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II began with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. It is also known as the Lugou Bridge Incident. Within days of the small skirmish with 100 Chinese garrison troops, the Japanese had brought in 180,000 troops. After that, the fighting between the Chinese and the Japanese did not stop until 1945. Japan then attacked Shanghai. Nationalist troops...

After the Long March, the Chinese Communists were mostly in northern Shaanxi, wanting a breather.  Japan had continued its aggression in China after it set up the puppet state of Manchukuo under Emperor Pu Yi. It manufactured incident after incident and had expanded its army’s reach into northern and northeast China. It was trying to influence Inner Mongolia and Hebei, around Beijin...

Zhou Enlai planned in secret the details of the Chinese Communist's escape from the encirclement of the Central Soviet. He identified a Guangdong warlord who preferred to save his troops rather than fight the Red Army. The First Red Army was able to pass through a number of blockhouses, before reaching the last of Chiang Kai-shek's fortifications near the Xiang River and suffering major casualties...

Mao Zedong had been chosen as President of the Chinese Soviet Republic, but he never controlled its Red Army. Wang Ming and the 28 Bolsheviks had more control, including over land policy and preparations to defend against the Fifth Encirclement Campaign. On land, the Communist Party of China officials didn't want land redistribution to result in a countryside of middle peasants holding private pro...

In September 1931, junior officer's of Japan's Kwantung Army in Manchuria set off explosives to make it look like a Chinese attack on Japanese interests along the South Manchuria Railway. This is often called the Mukden Incident or named after the nearby Liutiao Lake. The Kwantung Army then attacked Zhang Xueliang's nearby garrison and, with Japanese reinforcements, moved into the rest of Manchuri...

Mao had long desired revolution to peace. Even as a student, he wrote of his desire for the destruction of the old universe. Thanks to his teacher Yang Changji, he met early leaders of the Communist Party, got a job as a junior librarian in Beijing and met his second wife. Yang Kaihui fell deeply in love with Mao and stayed loyal to him, even after Mao left her and took a new wife. She preferred t...

Chiang Kai-shek used strong-armed tactics to fundraise for his army and government. Kidnapping, ransoms and execution were part of his tactics. He allied with the Green Gang of Shanghai, as did the French authorities. Shanghai businessmen were kidnapped and held for ransom unless they bought Nanjing's bonds during the Northern Expedition. T.V. Soong found a better way to sell Chinese bonds. He inc...

After the Northern Expedition, the Guomindang (KMT) ejected Communists from the Nationalist Party. The Communist Party of China had no army. Zhou Enlai had inserted Communists into the Nationalists' Army and the Nanchang Uprising was a coup planned to carve a Red Army out from the Guomindang's troops. It succeeded and they briefly formed a Revolutionary Committee in Nanchang and He Long took comma...

Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) wanted to shrink the Chinese armies following the Northern Expedition. However, the warlords wouldn't agree without a fight. The result was the War of the Central Plains when Chiang defeated the warlords who had helped him win the Northern Expedition. One by one and then as a group they resisted his efforts to assert Nanjing's control over the provincial and regional...

Zhang Zuolin paid for his defeat by the Northern Expedition with his life. Japan assassinated their former Manchurian ally by detonating a bomb as his train passed. Manchuria was becoming chaotic as refugees arrived fleeing battles and famine in Shandong. Other former warlords also died as family members of their victims took revenge. The Nationalists suspended the Constitution and decreed that Ch...

The Nationalists' Northern Expedition began with doubts by their Communist allies. But it was a military success and quickly Henan and then Hebei provinces were captured. Mikhail Borodin then wanted the armies to move north along the Hankou-Beijing railway line. Instead, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) preferred to follow the Yangzi River downstream and take the rich provinces controlled by the war...

In the lead up to Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition, both the KMT's Hu Hanmin and the Christian General Feng Yuxiang were in Moscow. Hu sought admission by the KMT to the Comintern as China's representative. Feng was seeking weapons and engineers for his National People's Army. Both returned deeply skeptical about the Soviet Union and its intentions towards China. The USSR wanted an alliance w...

Two funerals were held for Sun Yat-sen on the same day. One involved Christian rites by his family, to prove that Sun was not a Bolshevik. The other was organized by the Communist Party and involved the Soviet Ambassador and a loudspeaker playing Sun's message about nationalism. Already there was a fight to claim Sun's legacy. Sun's widow, Song Qingling, was from a family which had all studied in...

The Communist Party of China and the KMT both needed organizing. The KMT and Sun Yat-sen were overly reliant on southern warlords. When they turned on Sun, that made the KMT homeless and risked the life of Sun and those close to him, like his wife Song Qingling. She suffered a miscarriage when Chen Jiongming attacked their house in Guangzhou. Never again would Madame Sun Yat-sen be able to bear ch...

A detailed look at China's internal divisions and its neighbours in 1921 when its Communist Party was founded. Image; Map of China and Asia in 1921 Created for the Chinese Revolution Podcast and Chinese Revolution YouTube series. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The new Communist Party of China faced decisions on how to grow. Henk Sneevliet, representative of the Communist International (Comintern) to the Far East recommended allying with Sun Yat-sen and the KMT and forming a United Front. Communist Party members could join the KMT as individuals while the Communist Party criticized it and organized the workers and peasants for revolution. Henk faced resi...

A discussion with Anthony Vernon about atheism in China, both before and since Communism. The distinction between Chinese and foreign religions is featured, as well as how the Chinese Communist Party has changed its policies towards religions over time. Image: "Karl Marx, painted portrait _DDC2742" by Abode of Chaos is licensed under CC BY 2.0 You save and you support this podcast by using those l...

Students were the first Chinese to pay attention to the Russian Revolution and the new Communist government there. The Communist International (or Comintern) founded in 1919, also actively promoted and sponsored revolution abroad. Gregory Voitinsky arrived in 1920 as part of the Soviet efforts in China. Chinese students in France (like Zhou Enlai) and professors at Peking University were quic...

Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People inspired the KMT party and were implemented after his death in 1925. They also facilitated cooperation between the KMT and the Communist Party of China during the periods of a United Front. This episode discusses those Three Principles as a prelude to a look at the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. You can support this show through Buy me a coffe...

This podcast update looks forward to the beginning of the Chinese Communist Party, its United Front with the KMT, then the death of Sun Yat-sen, who is followed by Chiang Kai-shek. You’ll hear stories of the KMT’s successful Northern Expedition before turning its knives on the Communists and the beginning of the fighting between those two sides. There will also be another context episode with a gu...