Red China
Civil War, World War II, and Back to Civil War
Back in 1934, the Chinese Civil War between the Nationalists of the KMT and the Communists of the CPC was in full bloom. In October, the KMT overwhelmed CPC forces in southern China. The CPC began a long, slow retreat of over 5,500 miles to northwestern China. This “Long March” (actually a series of retreats) took over a year and cost many lives. As many as 90% of those who initially escaped the KMT didn’t make it. But the CPC grew in isolation from KMT-controlled southern China. The Long March figures heavily in the creation myth of the modern CPC. Mao Zedong, who was one of the commanders of the Long March, used it as a springboard to his control of the CPC. With Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT (unsuccessfully) trying to contain Japanese encroachment, Mao and the CPC were spreading the good news of Communism to the peasant masses throughout the countryside. The collaboration between the two factions during the Second Sino-Japanese War, always tentative at best, broke down by 1940. The US and the Soviet Union did their best to intervene in order to minimize the internal conflict while trying to defeat Japan. The CPC primarily practiced guerilla warfare against the Japanese, which further increased their popularity with occupied populations. The KMT, on the other hand, suffered greater casualties against Japan as the official government forces fighting conventional warfare.
Civil war eventually resumed outright once Japan was finally defeated by the Allies. The CPC kept the advantage over the KMT it had gained during the WWII era. It gained further advantage when the Soviets gifted them with weaponry seized from Japanese forces in Manchuria. In turn, the US supported the KMT. (Cold War, anyone?) US support notwithstanding, Nanjing, the capital of KMT-governed China, fell to the CPC in April 1949. The KMT retreated further and further into central China. On October 1, 1949, Mao gloriously proclaimed the birth of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on Tiananmen Square. Mao’s portrait has been hanging on Tiananmen (the Gate of Heavenly Peace) ever since.
Two Chinas
In December 1949, Chiang, the KMT, and two million supporters—in fact, the Republic of China (ROC)–retreated to Taiwan and named Taipei their capital, ending the Chinese Civil War. (The post-WWII stage of the Chinese Civil War is known in China as the War of Liberation. It’s known in the West as the Chinese Communist Revolution.) The Nationalists brought with them treasures of the Forbidden City, having been evacuated for safekeeping when the Japanese invaded. (They are on display today in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. I hope to check them out some day!) Until 1971, the ROC, despite only having rule over Taiwan, was considered by most of the world to be the legitimate government of China. In 1971, in anticipation of Nixon’s trip to Mainland China, the UN switched its recognition of the legitimate government of China to the PRC. Today, only 22 countries, all quite small, have diplomatic relations with Taiwan as an independent country. (I had no idea that the US still officially recognizes Taiwan as part of China under the PRC.) The KMT continued to rule over Taiwan for the rest of the 20th century until 2000, when a democratic election transferred rule to the opposition party.
Great Leap Forward (It Wasn’t So Great and Was More Like a Tumble)
Meanwhile back on the mainland, China had its own post-WWII baby boom, with the population almost doubling. In the mid-‘50s, Mao’s China broke up with the Soviet Union over Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalinism. Mao was angered by the Soviets’ break from ideological doctrine. With China now virtually isolated from the rest of the world, Mao was ready to start implementing his eponymous ideology, Mao Zedong Thought (Maoism), on the growing nation. He promptly got started by executing millions of landowners, delighting the peasantry. In 1958, he undertook the disastrous Great Leap Forward, which was intended to rapidly transform China from an agrarian to a socialized industrialized nation. Anyone not complying with the campaign’s ideological policies was persecuted as counter-revolutionary. Such policies included the ideological but not very pragmatic policy of having peasants produce their own steel in “backyard furnaces”. There were other massive doomed-from-the-start industrial and agricultural experimental projects, all of which led to the Great Leap Forward’s greatest legacy: the Great Chinese Famine. It lasted 3 years and caused anywhere from 15 to 45 million deaths (including deaths by cannibalism). By the early ‘60s, the baby boom was unquestionably over, and Mao was no longer so popular. He lost his position as head of state, although he retained his chairmanship of the CPC. Reformists including Deng Xiaoping rose to power.
Cultural Revolution (It Was Pretty Anti-Cultural)
Well, Mao and his allies never stopped scheming to get him back in control, particularly by using propaganda to damage his political enemies. In 1966, with his power consolidated in the CPC, he launched a program to simultaneously get revenge on his political enemies and restore ideological purity throughout China. The program: the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution called for the destruction of the Four Olds: old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. (Hello, thoughtcrime.) Revolutionary young people formed a militarized movement called the Red Guard. They happily brought about the destruction of as much as they could. Much of China’s cultural heritage was lost. (During my trip, I saw plaques referring to sites that had been damaged during the 1960s and, sometimes, since rebuilt. It was clear what “during the 1960s” was code for.) Intellectuals were persecuted and imprisoned. Millions of people were displaced for ideological reasons. Many of the displaced included those sent to hard labor in the country for “re-education”. China fell into chaos. Mao looked upon the chaos favorably as “constant revolution”. The Cult of Personality was full on. Deng was forced out of power.
In 1969, Mao declared the end of the Cultural Revolution. In actuality, it continued actively for at least a couple more years. And it only completely ended when it died along with Mao in 1976. (The first time I heard of Mao was when I learned about his death while in the 8th grade. Well, I suppose I had heard of him earlier in the Beatles’ “Revolution” in the line “But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao…”, but of course it went way over my head at the time.) After Mao’s death, the Gang of Four, Mao’s widow and 3 close CPC associates, were held responsible for the previous decade’s near anarchy. They were arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. Three of them got life sentences. The people of China exhaled. Deng soon after returned to power and began instituting his long sought-for economic reforms. Deng declared Mao to have been about 70% good. Maoism, like Mao himself was dead, replaced by Dengism. China was on its way to becoming the economic superpower it is today.
Post-Mao China
For a brief time in 1989, a million students gathered on Tiananmen Square made it seem that democratic reforms might come to accompany the economic reforms. The ensuing violent crackdown had the opposite effect, reversing some of the reforms that had come earlier. China was once again in danger of being isolated, but not by its own choice this time. Deng, who was out of power by then, subsequently promoted a renewed push for reforms. In the 1990s, China returned onto the path of its own version of progress. By 2000, Hong Kong and Macau had both transferred back to China from the Britain and Portugal. In the 21st century, relations with Taiwan have improved. (I was surprised at the airport to see Taiwan included with Hong Kong and Macau as domestic locales.) In 2010, Communist China surpassed Japan as the world’s 2nd largest economy. And that’s history…until the next revolution.
[Historical information is primarily gathered from Wikipedia, so you know it must be true.]
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