The Guomindang (GMD): PolIcies

Overview

It is helpful to see Nationalist party policies over two distinct phases, and we will cover both below. The first of these is the period from 1923-1928 when the Nationalists regrouped with the aid of extensive help from the Russians, created the first United Front with the Communist Party and then led a military drive from the South of China to the North to reunify the country. This period of time can be seen as ending once the Nationalists captured Beijing. 

The second period is the following (albeit slightly overlapping) decade when the Nationalists ruled China from their capital in Nanking 1927-37. We will look at each of these in turn, but it is of vital importance that for this second period from '27-37 you keep in mind that lurking in the background for the '30s were Japanese territorial ambitions towards China, and these had a definite impact on shaping and limiting the implementation of Nationalist policies once Chiang Kai Shek was in power.

Links

The Shanghai Massacre -from Alpha History

The Russian dimension explained by Rana Mitter

"Sun was now totally disillusioned with the western powers who talked about peace and justice but seemed intent on carving China up yet further. Then, he was unable to persuade the Japanese to back him, though he made several attempts to get them to do so. So he turned to the new power on the world scene who seemed to promise a new and fairer world: Soviet Russia. Having instigated a revolution and won a bloody civil war, the Bolsheviks began to turn their attention to revolutions abroad."

Q. There are two reasons given as to why the Chinese nationalists connected with the Russian Communists what are they?

Reunifying China 1923-28

ORGANISING 1923-26/Start of 1st United front

  • Borodin (the Soviet advisor) was instrumental in drafting a new party constitution modelled on the Bolshevik party
  • The new party structure demanded strict discipline from its members eg: If nationalists were part of other groups such as trade unions, they had to work together and form a nationalist bloc within the other group.
  • The Nationalist party became overtly anti-imperialist in tone (partly on the advice of the Comintern), and won lots of support from ordinary Chinese for taking a stand against foreign powers eg: The Canton customs crisis
  • Communists were allowed to join the party by Sun Yat Sen creating the first united front

May 30th Incident

  • On Saturday, 30 May, 8 Shanghai students gathered in the International Settlement to protest against the unequal treaties and warlord rule of China. 
  • The protestors were arrested.
  • An angry mob gathered outside the police station to demand their release.
  • The young British police officer in charge ordered his men to open fire on the crowd killing and wounding several of them. 
  • This led to outrage all over China, and in particular a flood of support for both the Nationalist cause and the Communist party. 

The Northern Expedition 1926-28

  • Early in 1926 GMD forces attacked northward attempting to unite China. They were supported by the Communist Party as part of the first united front.
  • This was excellent timing as the northern warlords were fighting amongst themselves, making them vulnerable.
  • Partly due to this, the GMD forces received great numbers of defecting troops from the warlord armies in each area they reached.  
  • That said, there was often serious fighting to overcome
  • The Nationalist armies were probably helped by mass strikes and protests organised by the Communist party as they approached cities.
  • While some historians have argued that these mass movements only happened after Nationalist troops were already there, there is little doubt that they did happen.
  • As the Northern Expedition was drawing to a successful conclusion, Chiang Kai Shek turned on his Communist allies. 
  • This may have been Chiang Kai Shek's intention all along, or it may have been triggered by fears arising from the sheer strength of the Communist Party's control over the labour movements in Shanghai that they were on the verge of breaking from the Nationalist cause themselves.
  • Using underworld contacts, especially the Green Gang, in Shanghai, he initiated a savage purge of communists and communist connected people which became known as the White Terror.
  • Despite the purge of the communists, the Northern expedition continued until Beijing was captured in 1928. 
  • After the fall of Beijing, the Nationalists moved their capital city to Nanjing.
  • This began the 'Nanjing Decade'.

NAtionalist Rule 1927-37

Economic Problems

  • The Nanjing decade was marked by a heavy amount of government debt eg: Revenue was only around 80% of what was being spent.
  • Contrary to Communist propaganda, Chiang was hardly a friend to businessmen after he took power. There were examples of the nationalists kidnapping family members of businessmen to extort money from them.
  • The reason for this was military spending due to the threat from Japan. 
  • Inevitably, this also restricted the Nanjing governments ability to spend money on other needs.
  • The GMD government was also chronically short of human resources, which was one of the reasons they could not increase their tax base.
  • They also lacked support in the countryside which made increasing revenue from taxation there very difficult.
  • You should also keep in mind the global context of the Great Depression during much of the Nanjing decade

Relations with the Imperial Powers

  • The Nationalists did make progress in renegotiating the unequal treaties.
  • For example in 1928 the United States gave up its rights to control the tariffs China could levy on its goods.
  • Furthermore, between 1929 and 1931 Britain gave up her rights over Hankou, Jiujiang, Zhenjiang and Xiamen, and the leased territory of Weihaiwei.
  • Other attempts to negotiate an end to the unequal treaties were prevented by the beginnings of hostilities with Japan

Historiography: Changing interpretations of the Nanjing Decade with Dr J.A.G. Roberts

"In the 1970s the assessment of the achievements in the Nanjing decade was distinctly unfavourable. Lloyd E. Eastman entitled his influential study of the years 1927 to 1937 The Abortive Revolution. James E. Sheridan’s equally influential review of the Republican era, China in Disintegration, reiterated that judgement. Recently that assessment has been challenged, however. For Robert E. Bedeski the republican government’s major contribution was the establishment of a new and sovereign Chinese state. Julia Strauss described Nationalist China as ‘a weak state operating in a hostile environment’. Nevertheless in the 1930s it was surprisingly successful in developing critical components of state-building, for example building up and resourcing an effective military establishment, and developing foreign relations to create a less precarious international environment. In Reappraising Republican China, Richard Edmonds remarked how researchers, who now had access to mainland Chinese records, were describing the Republican era as ‘part of a continuous transition during which China modified its traditional society and adapted to new roles in world affairs – sometimes with considerable success’."TASKS
1. How have interpretations of the Nanjing decade changed over time?
2. TOK link: What do these changes suggest about the nature of historical interpretations?

Historiography: REasons for the end of the 1st United front

Source a: Diana Lary

"By the end of the first stage of the Northern Expedition the revolutionary armies had quadrupled in size, to about 250,000 soldiers, almost all of them armies of recently converted warlords. In the midst of success, the revolutionary zeal suddenly eroded, from the top down, the GMD was acquiring military allies, its politics were increasingly fractured. In the spring of 1927 a dramatic split took place. Chiang Kai-shek and his (largely military) supporters decided to get rid of key parts of the revolutionary movement, the Soviet advisors, the left wing of the GMD, and the Communists. They won the day, and China's revolution turned in a militarist, authoritarian direction. The Soviet advisors fled back to the Soviet Union, the CCP was decimated in a savage purge that started in April and continued for much of the year - the white terror. The great promise of radical revolution was dead."

Source b: Jonathan Fenby

"The attack on the united front by the KMT right was inevitable, given the competing ambitions on either side, transforming the ‘awakening’ of China into a bloody settling of scores in the latest upsurge of reaction and force. The repression in Shanghai on 12 April 1927 began a violent power struggle between left and right that would take millions of lives in twenty-two years of national dislocation."

Tasks: How do the views of these two sources differ?

The Nationalists in Power