Reading Essentials and Study Guide Nationalism Around the ...

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Nationalism Around the World: Reading Essentials and Study Guide: Lesson 3

Reading Essentials and Study Guide Nationalism Around the World

Lesson 3 Revolutionary Chaos in China

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS How can political control lead to nationalist movements? How does economic exploitation lead to nationalist movements?

Reading HELPDESK Content Vocabulary

guerrilla tactics the use of unexpected maneuvers like sabotage and subterfuge to fight an enemy redistribution of wealth the shifting of wealth from a rich minority to a poor majority

Academic Vocabulary

cease to come to an end eventually in the end

TAKING NOTES: Summarizing Information 1. ACTIVITY As you read, use the cluster diagram below to show the Confucian values that Chiang

Kai-shek used to bring modern Western ideas into a culturally conservative population.

IT MATTERS BECAUSE

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Nationalism Around the World: Reading Essentials and Study Guide: Lesson 3

In 1923 the Nationalist and Communist Parties in China formed an alliance, or partnership. They did this to drive the imperialists out of China. Tensions grew between the two parties, however. Sun Yatsen's successor as leader of the Nationalists was Chiang Kaishek. He attacked the Communists, and many of them went into hiding or fled to the north. There Mao Zedong set up a Communist base.

Nationalists and Communists

GUIDING QUESTION What was the relationship between the Nationalists and the Communists?

Revolutionary Marxism had its greatest impact in China. Central authority, or control by a nationwide government, had almost ceased to exist in China by 1920. Two political forces began to emerge. They competed for the right to rule China. Sun Yatsen's Nationalist Party was one force. It had lost much of its power and position several years earlier. The other was the Chinese Communist Party.

The Nationalist-Communist Alliance The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began in 1921. A group of young radicals founded it, including several people who worked for Beijing University. The CCP was formed in the commercial and industrial city of Shanghai. Agents of the Comintern, a worldwide organization of Communist parties, told the new party to join with the more experienced Nationalist Party.

Sun Yat-sen was the leader of the Nationalists. He welcomed the cooperation between the Nationalists and the Communists. He needed the skill and support from the Soviet Union, who had started the Comintern to help spread Communism throughout the world. Sun's anti-imperialist ideas had pushed away many Western powers. One English-language newspaper in Shanghai even wrote that Sun's ideas kept China in disorder, and he should be stopped. In 1923 the Nationalists and the Communists formed an alliance. They did this to oppose the warlords, military leaders who controlled local areas, and to drive the imperialist powers out of China.

The two parties tried to work together for more than three years. They formed a revolutionary army to march north and seize control of China. This march, which began in the summer of 1926, was called the Northern Expedition. Revolutionary forces had taken control of all of China south of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) by the following spring. The area included the major river ports of Wuhan and Shanghai.

Tensions between the parties eventually arose. Sun Yat-sen died in 1925. General Chiang Kaishek (JYAHNG KY?SHEHK) was his military subordinate, and he replaced Sun Yatsen as head of the Nationalist Party. Chiang pretended to support the alliance with the Communists, but he really planned to destroy them. He attacked the Communists in Shanghai in April 1927, and thousands were killed. The Nationalist-Communist alliance ceased after this attack, which was known as the Shanghai Massacre.

In 1928 Chiang Kai-shek founded a new Chinese republic at Nanjing. He worked to reunify China during the next three years. Chiang saw Japan as a serious threat, but he believed that the Communists were more dangerous.

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Nationalism Around the World: Reading Essentials and Study Guide: Lesson 3

The Communists in Hiding After the Shanghai Massacre of April 1927, most of the Communist leaders went into hiding in the city. There, they tried to bring back the Communist movement within the urban working class. Shanghai was a good place to find members for the Communist party because people were unhappy and looking for leadership. Some Communist party members fled to the mountainous Jiangxi

(JYAHNG?SHEE) Province, south of the Chang Jiang. They were led by the young Communist organizer Mao Zedong (MOW DZUH?DUNG). Mao was convinced that the poor farm workers in the countryside would lead a Chinese revolution, not the urban working class. Mao was the son of a successful, wealthy peasant. He had helped to organize a peasant movement in South China during the early 1920s. Chiang Kai-shek tried to get the Communists out of Shanghai and Jiangxi Province. He succeeded in the first task in 1931. Most party leaders in Shanghai were forced to flee to Mao's base in the mountains in southern China.

Chiang Kaishek then turned his forces against Mao's group in Jiangxi Province. Chiang's forces far outnumbered Mao's, but Mao made effective use of guerrilla tactics. These were unexpected methods like sabotage (destroying things useful to the enemy) and tricks. Four slogans by Mao describe his methods. He said to retreat when the enemy advances, to bother the enemy at camp, to attack when the enemy tries to avoid fighting, and to attack when the enemy retreats.

The Long March Chiang's troops had more military strength than Mao's. In 1934 they surrounded the Communist base in Jiangxi and set up a blockade. Chiang's troops stood between the villages and Mao, and so no food or supplies could pass to the Communist base. Chiang even built small forts to prevent Communist raids. Mao's army was called the People's Liberation Army (PLA). It broke through the Nationalist lines and began its famous Long March.

Both Mao and Chiang knew that Mao's army would be destroyed unless it could cross the Chang Jiang. Mao's army began a race for their lives. They moved on foot through mountains, marshes, rivers, and deserts. The army traveled almost 6,000 miles (9,600 km) to reach the last surviving Communist base in northwest China. They traveled 24 miles (38 km) each day. Mao's troops had to fight Chiang's army the whole way.

Many of Mao's troops froze or starved along the way. One survivor of the Long March remembered there was less and less to eat each day. They had to eat their horses and live on wild vegetables. They even had to eat their leather belts.

Mao's troops reached safety in the hills of northern China one year later. Only 9,000 of the 90,000 troops who had started on the journey remained. Mao Zedong became the only leader of the Chinese Communist Party through the course of the Long March. The Communist threat to the Nanjing regime must have seemed over to people who lived at the time. The Communists still had hope for the future, however.

PROGRESS CHECK

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Nationalism Around the World: Reading Essentials and Study Guide: Lesson 3

2. Identifying Central Issues Why did the Nationalists and Communists form an alliance?

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The New China

GUIDING QUESTION What characterized the new China?

Chiang had been trying to build a new Chinese nation even while he was trying to stop Mao's Communist forces. He had publicly declared his commitment to Sun Yatsen's plans for a republican government. However, before that, there would be a period of change. Sun had felt that the Chinese people needed to be prepared for republican rule. It would take time to change from a monarchy to a republic. There would be confusion if this transition period did not happen.

Chiang announced a period of political tutelage, or training. This was to prepare the Chinese people for a final stage of constitutional government. Even peasants would be given time to understand the country's problems and the new government. In the meantime, the Nationalists would use their power to carry out a land-reform program. They would also make the urban industrial sector, or part, of the economy more modern.

A Class Divide It would take more than plans on paper to create a new China. Years of neglect and civil war made all parts of the nation--its politics, its economy, and its society--weak. There were some signs of a growing industrial revolution, or growth in industries, in the major cities. However, most of the people who lived in the countryside struggled because of war and civil unrest. Rural peasants made up to 80 percent of China's population, and they were still very poor and mostly illiterate.

Meanwhile, a Westernized middle class began to form in the cities. It was here that the new Nanjing government found much of its support. The new elite focused on middle-class Western values. These values included individual advancement and making money or having possessions. The elite had few links with the peasants in the countryside or with rickshaw drivers. (A rickshaw is a small two-wheeled cart pulled by a person. It usually carried one passenger. It was common in cities, and drivers had a very difficult job.) In the cities, it looked as if Chiang Kai-shek had brought China into the modern world. Young people in the cities wore European clothes. They went to the movies and listened to the radio.

Innovations and Traditions Chiang Kai-shek knew it would be difficult to introduce foreign ideas into a population that still held

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Nationalism Around the World: Reading Essentials and Study Guide: Lesson 3

traditional values. He tried to bring together modern western innovations with traditional Confucian values of hardwork and obedience. His wife, Soong Mei-ling, had been educated in the United States. With her, Chiang set up a "New Life Movement." Its goal was to promote traditional Confucian social beliefs. These included hard work, obedience, integrity (truth and honesty), propriety (good manners), and righteousness (justice). Four old Confucian virtues would be guides for living: Li (courtesy), I (duty), Lien (honesty), and Chih (honor). At the same time, it rejected Western capitalist values.

Unfortunately for Chiang Kai-Shek, Confucian ideas had been widely rejected. This traditional system had failed to provide answers to China's decline. Chiang Kaishek also faced many other problems as well. The Nanjing government had total control over just a few provinces in the Chang Jiang valley. The Japanese threatened to gain control of northern China. The Great Depression was also having a bad effect on China's economy. These problems made it difficult for Chiang to make much progress with his program.

Limited Progress Chiang faced many problems, but he did have some success. He established a large road-building project. He also had much of the country's railroad system repaired and extended. More than 50,000 miles (80,467 km) of highways were built around and through the areas on the coast. New factories were opened, and most of these had Chinese owners. The foreign powers ended many of their special privileges or rights through a series of agreements with China. They ended many of their leases on Chinese territory. They also gave up extraterritorial rights (right to separate areas where their citizens lived and where they did not have to obey Chinese, but just their own laws). They returned the customs service, or system of taxing imports, to Chinese control. Chiang also established a national bank and improved the education system.

Chiang feared Communist influence. As a result, he suppressed, or stopped, all opposition. He also censored free expression. Chiang's actions angered many intellectuals and political moderates (people without extreme positions). Chiang's support came from the rural landed gentry and the urban middle class. He did not want programs that would lead to a redistribution of wealth. A land-reform program began in 1930, but it had little effect. There was no real improvement under the Nanjing government for the peasants and poor townspeople.

Sun Fo was Sun Yatsen's son. He did not approve of the Nanjing government. He felt that the Kuomintang, or Chinese Nationalist Party, had taken a wrong direction, and it did not follow the ideas in the party constitution, which Sun Yatsen had created in 1923. He also said the party worked against the spirit of democracy.

Chiang Kaishek's government did not have much success in promoting industrial development. Industrial growth averaged only about one percent per year between 1927 and 1937. Much of the national wealth was in the hands of what was called the "four families." This was a group of senior officials and close subordinates of the ruling elite. Military expenses took up half the budget. Little was left for social and economic development.

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