Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communists in China in the 1920s - Essay Example

Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communists in China in the 1920s In his article, Analysis of the es in Chinese Society, Mao Tse-tung argues that the lower classes of Chinese society will provide the main support for the communist revolution because they have low economic status and are victims of the capitalist exploitation of international imperialism. According to Mao, the origin of massive class disparity in China is the imperial capitalism which places most of the national resources in the hands of a small elite group and leaves the majority of the population, which comprises of peasants and low-level workers, economically deprived and struggling excessively in their efforts to earn a living. Mao believes that these struggling classes are the real friends of the revolution because they stand to benefit tremendously in a system whereby national resources are equitably distributed to all citizens (Tse-tung, Marxists.org).Thesis: Mao’s argument on economic disparity between classes in Chinese society illustrates the reason for the constant conflict between the Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communists in the 1920s. Mao’s argument plays a significant role when considering the differences between the Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communists in China in the 1920s. The policies of the Nationalists tended to lean towards western ideals of capitalism and international imperialism. These policies favored the high classes of Chinese society at the expense of the lower classes. The high classes benefited from this system because they owned capital which they could use for productive purposes. They kept the proceeds from these productive purposes all to themselves, paying peasant workers small wages and overworking them. On the other hand, the Communists recognized that resources are limited, and not everyone in the society can acquire significant resources that will enable them to live comfortably. Therefore, they believed that the government should have sole control of all resources and distribute them equally to all members of the society (Ebrey, Walthall and Palais, 427). These massive ideological differences pitted the Communists against the Nationalists in the struggle to establish control over the divided country. It quickly became apparent to the Communists that they would have to drive the Nationalists from power for them to be able to spread the ideals of the revolution. Regime change and complete overhaul of the old system would have to take place if the communist revolution were to achieve success. Consequently, the Communists were a direct threat to the survival of the Nationalist government and to its grip on power and influence. As a result, the Nationalists realized that they would have to stem communist ideals from spreading throughout China in order to prevent the Communists from acquiring enough support to mount a revolution (Ebrey, Walthall and Palais, 431). Throughout the 1920s, there was conflict between the Nationalists and the Communists. The Communists were attempting to grow their movement whereas the Nationalists were bent on preventing from them from gaining a foothold among rural Chinese peasants and urban dwellers. For example, the Communist Party gained a massive following among members of the General Labor Union of Shanghai. This following enabled the Communist Party to influence the GLU to call for a general strike on March 1921. Consequently over six hundred thousand workers seized the city and demanded a return of foreign concessions. Soldiers and members of the Green Gang loyal to Chiang Kaishek of the Nationalist Party immediately mounted a response, shooting and killing an estimated 5,000 union members and also attacked the union headquarters. This terror did not end with Shanghai. It quickly spread to other Chinese cities whereby soldiers of the Nationalist government destroyed bases of the Communist Party (Ebrey, Walthall and Palais, 427). These events demonstrated the fear that the Nationalists had over the Communists gaining considerable support in China. They were against the equitable distribution of resources within the society because this would result in the upper classes losing massive amounts of the resources they control. The Nationalist Party derived its support mainly from the upper classes such as landlords, who feared losing their vast amounts of wealth in the event that communist rule becomes established in China. Only the wealthy in Chinese society could take part in politics. Leaders of the Nationalist Party were mostly individuals from wealthy families or intellectuals who obtained support from western countries. Chiang Kaishek, who was the leader of the Nationalists from 1928, had himself come from a landlord-merchant family. In addition, the Nationalist Party obtained massive support from western countries, especially the U.S., who provided them with military equipment and funds in return for concessions in China. These concessions were in the form of massive tracts of land and resources which were exploited by foreigners at the expense of poor Chinese peasants (Ebrey, Walthall and Palais, 430) In the fall of 1927, the Communist Party attempted to organize uprisings among urban workers and rural peasants, but they all failed miserably. An uprising in Guangzhou was squashed with the execution of about 3,500 worker revolutionaries. From 1927 towards the end of 1930, Nationalist forces hunted the Communist organizers throughout the country, killing or jailing many of them. The ones that survived the hunt were forced to go underground and move into the countryside. These events finally convinced the communists that it would be impossible to carry out their revolution without military force. Mao Zedong, leader of the communist unit in Hunan and future leader of the Chinese Communist Party, was one of the first communist organizers to start mobilizing peasants for military action against the Nationalists. He was very successful in this endeavor because the peasants he began to recruit in the mountain areas of Hunan were landless. Mao enforced a severe form of land reform whereby he took land from the rich and redistributed it to the peasants. All physically able peasants were required to work on the land. Although his peasant troops were grossly under-equipped, the communist principles that Mao enforced satisfied them tremendously because, for the first time, they were able to eke out a decent living. Mao took advantage of the fact that land ownership would serve as an attractive incentive for peasants to take up arms against the Nationalists. Ownership of land would solve most of their economic problems as they would be able to work on it and produce their own food, instead of relying on wealthy landlords for their food supply. Therefore, this proves Mao right that the lower classes will be particularly willing to join the communist movement since it raises their economic status (Tse-tung, Marxists.org). Mao Zedong’s exhaustive analysis of land ownership in Xunwu County of the Jiangxi Soviet in 1929 made him realize that poor peasants, who did not own any land, comprise the majority of the population. Therefore, acquiring support from the poor peasants would mean gaining the support of most of the Chinese population. This massive support would put the communists in pole position to overthrow the Nationalists and achieve their long-sought communist revolution. Although Mao and other communist leaders were on the right track in their quest to remove the Nationalists from power, they carried out several rash actions which almost compromised the entire endeavor. For example, the Communist Party led an assault against the city of Changsha in October 1930 in an attempt to ignite urban uprisings. The attack was a complete failure and convinced the leaders of the Communist Party that the best course for the time being was to concentrate on gaining support among rural peasants (Ebrey, Walthall and Palais, 429). The issue of class proved vital in the struggle between the Nationalists and the Communists because the economic ideologies of both factions were tied closely to the distribution of wealth in the society. In was a struggle between the rich and the poor. The Communists wanted the poor to acquire a greater portion of resources in the society. The Nationalists, who represents the wealthy in Chinese society, could not allow this to happen because they would have to lose their resources for the lower classes to acquire them. To some extent, the equitable distribution of resources would have been unfair to some wealthy individuals who had started with nothing and had worked hard to acquire their wealth. Therefore, the whole system would be some form of punishment for hard work. As a result, the capitalists under the Nationalist Party were set on ensuring that the communist revolution does not go through, culminating in the acts of terror perpetrated by the Nationalists against the communists in the 1920s. As it turned out later, these acts did not achieve their purpose of breaking the communist movement but simply strengthened it. The communists continued to grow steadily throughout the 1930s and 1940s, finally defeating the Nationalists in 1949 (Ebrey, Walthall and Palais, 426). Conclusion Evidently, Mao’s argument on classes in Chinese society has a huge political bearing on the differences between Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communists in the 1920s. Mao argued that the economic deprivation of the low classes would make them willing to support the communist revolution. The Nationalists also realized this and, therefore, tried to prevent the Communists from gaining support among the peasants through acts of terror. They knew that if a communist revolution succeeded in China, they would be driven out of power since their policies greatly disadvantaged the lower classes. Consequently, the two factions struggled against each other throughout the 1920s. Works Cited Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, Anne Walthall and James B. Palais. Modern East Asia from 1600: A cultural, social, and political history. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. Print. Tse-tung, Mao. “ANALYSIS OF THE CLASSES IN CHINESE SOCIETY”. Marxists Internet Archive. 1926. Web. Retrieved 6 Mar 2013 from . Read More