GOVT2424 – Week 2 A Bitter Revolution - May 4thMovement
- Nationalists unhappy with perceived betrayal of national interests (loss of Chinese territories to Japan after end of WWII)
- Gave rise to atmosphere and political mood that were at the centre of a set of ideas that has shaped China’s momentous 20th cent
- Communist in name, but now more like a corporatist/semi-capitalist state with desire to be responsible member of international society
- After 1990s more marketised system, responsive to market pressures
- Standard def of the movement: period from mid-1910s to late 1920s when a group of Chinese thinkers felt that something was holding their country back from combating evils such as imperialism and warlordism
o Blamed traditional Chinese culture and its Confucian base
Callous treatment of poor, patriarchal oppression of women, inability to create modern nation state
- Cofucianism
o Understanding of how society should be ordered
o Order, refrain from use of force, hierarchical view of society o Obligation, loyalty, filial piety
- Chow combined intellectual and socio-political movement to achieve national independence, emancipation of the individual and just society by the modernisation of China
o Attacked tradition and reevaluated attitudes/practices in light of modern western civilisation
- Sense of real/impeding crisis, plurality of competing ideas aimed at ‘saving the nation’, and an audience ready to receive, welcome, contest and adapt these ideas
- By mid-19th Century, positive perception (self-confidence) of China started to change
o Revolutions from within, growing dissatisfied underclass, attacks by western imperial powers - Search for modern identity
- May 4th was the crucible of many transformative changes in China The Rise of a Mass-Mobilising Party-State in China
- Peasants provided major insurrectionary force to transform old class relations
- Peasants provided both aforementioned force and the organised popular basis for the consolidation of revolutionary state power
o Result: new regime uniquely devoted to fostering widespread participation and surprisingly resistant to routinized hierarchical domination by bureaucratic officials/experts
- The C revolution could be completed only when some revolutionary leaders learned to tap the insurrectionary, productive and political energies of the peasant majority
- Post-1911 independent military-political groupings which controlled territory and exploited local resources, varied in scale
o Authority dependent on loyalty of subordinates to warlord, who rewarded them with money, weapons, control over military units etc.
o Regimes constantly in conflict involved in resource extraction, recruitment, civil warfare
Constant jostle for territory milked own base, crushing tax burdens society grew weak and warlords grew stronger/richer
The Survival of the Local Gentry
- Confucian elite disintegrated after 1911
- Dissolution of imperial system did not directly create favourable circumstances for peasant revolts against landlords
- Demise of imperial system did have disorganising consequences for local gentry
o Made it difficult for local community leadership groupings to contract each other
Makes it impossible for traditional dominant class to defend itself against large-scale rebellious/revolutionary movement without substantial help from warlord/national armies o Eliminated well-institutionalised contacts between regional and national power centres and local elites
local gentry had to contend with succession of commanders, parties, etc. instability in local elite circles
o Decreased weight of Confucian-educated elements within local dominant classes
Increased opportunism, peasants more likely to rebel/leave to join roving armies etc.
- Unlike Russia/France, removal of the autocracy in 1911 did not result directly in social revolution
- As a result of this situation, unification and recreation of central authority could only begin from within the militarist system itself
Rise and Decline of the Urban-based Kuomintang
- Chinese Revo had two parallel revolutionary political movements that aimed at and achieved considerable success in consolidating state power post-1911
o Kuomintang based upon urban support/resources o CCP based upon peasant support/resources
- CCP able to penetrate rural communities, mobilise peasants whilst Kuomintang failed to consolidate state power on an urban basis
- During their alliance however, they were able to create an effective Nationalit Govt, well-armed/trained Nationalist Revolutionary Army, and a centrally organised, mass-based antiimperalist party oriented towards social reform
- Failure to consolidate national control
o Did not have resources for modern industries, proletarian mobilisation and military advantages of rail transportation
o Failed to break out of vicious circle of inadequate revenues and insufficient central political control o Huge sprawling army that was useless for waging war
The Communists and the Peasants
- Peasants would not fight and support unless Comms seemed to be fighting in their interests and in a style that conformed to their localistic orientations (guerrilla warfare)
- Communist Red Army combined guerrilla tactics with political-ideological unification through Party control o Educating all members to dedicated cooperation for the achievement of Party-defined purposes
Rank and reward differences downplayed, universal ideological commitment emphasised o Trained to ‘unite’ with the civilian peasantry treating peasant lives, property and customs with
respect army units engaged in production activities, rather than burdening/violating the peasantry in settled areas
o Gain active support of peasantry by promoting political education, party activities and military organisations
The Second United Front: Cadre Recruitment and Administrative Control
- Communists took advantage of the same wartime conditions that debilitated the KMT
o Combined nationalist appeals to potential educated recruits with concrete responses to the interests of the peasantry
Mass Mobilisation for Production, War and Land Revolution
- Need high level of mass mobilisation to support war effect against Japan and civil war against Nationalists - CCP’s quest for rural resources to make possible military victories against Japan, the warlords and the
Nationalists finally resulted in social revolution in the Chinese countryside
o This then generated final increments of enthusiastic peasant recruits and the directly harness agrarian productivity that the Red Armies needed to drive KMT out
New Regime
- PRC established by victorious Communists Strengthened State Bureaucracy
- Revolution gave rise to a much larger, more powerful and more bureaucratic new political regime - Comm regime extended the outreach and impact of central power to an unprecedented degree
- All locally and regionally based power blocs were dissolved with the rise of the Communist Party-state - Political influence upon China from previously revolutionised Soviet Russia
o Comm retained fundamentals of Leninist party structure and ideological allegiance to proletarian revolution
o Party organisation allowed them to mobilise peasant popular support during 1940s, establishing solid political basis in countryside
- There were after 1949 both infrastructural possibilities and international inducements for Comms to consolidate Soviet-style party-state
- Foreign capitalists and treaty port Chinese had built up some modern industries on fringes of country
- When they truly consolidated national political power after 1949, they moved step by step to extend Party and state management over financial, industrial and commercial enterprises, to bring mass organisations of urban people under party influence, to carry through the collectivisation of agriculture and to implement plans for state-controlled national industrialisation
o Also operated under direct Soviety tutelage tech experts and capital equipment from SU
- National ministries established to plan industrial investments and supervise resource allocations and enterprise operations
- But from 1957, policies were reoriented, concluded that Soviet-style policies were inappropriate to Chinese conditions
o More balanced development plans that stress growth of agriculture and rural/consumer-oriented industries SU-C alliance broken by 1960s
- Since late 1950s there has never been any return to direct imitation of Stalinist patterns or close alliance with SU
A Balanced Strategy for National Development
- Strategies of ‘walking on two legs’ investments in large-scale technologically advance industries have continued, more emphasis on agricultural development and growth of small rural and medium regional industries designed to serve peasant consumers, to produce inputs of use to agriculture and to process local resources and ag products
- Not only send educated urban people to the countryside, but also adapt modern techniques/expertise to rural needs/possibilities
- Basic unit of production/accounting in ag has been the local ‘team’, unit of collective ownership corresponding to village/neighbourhood etc.
o Directed by bureaucrats and local leaders
- ‘brigade’ cadres at village level coordinate team plans and mobilise manpower for projects
- Party reaches directly to brigade level, basic unit of state admin is the commune officials oversee fulfilment of production plans negotiated between localities and state, coordinate ag extension services and social services and industrial enterprises
o Peasant produces surrender grain to state as tax, contribute funds to commune and brigade functions - Decentralisation of leadership responsibilities and leeway to team/brigade/commune leaders to retain/reinvest
surpluses generated by local ag and industrial enterprises
o Subsequently peasants can often see direct links between projects and their own welfare - Presence of collectives linked to and mobilised by the party-state has meant that all peasant
communities/families could be included in ag development, achieving income gains and welfare Political Coordination, Mass Mobilisation and Egalitarianism
- Strategy of ‘balanced’ national economic development has placed a premium on coordination and responsible leadership at local, provincial and national levels impossible for all projects to be planned/controlled according to explicit blueprints/procedures handed down from ministries
o Responsibilities for social services, small industries etc. delegated to lower level local/regional leaders planning procedures have been flexible, adapting/coordinating local resources to meet goals
- Managers, leaders, experts prodded to give up own privileges and merge with rank/file workers believed more rapid economic/social development would result as workers not alienated and will contribute fully their skills/efforts
- Comm C is relatively egalitarian concerted efforts to hold steady/reduce inequalities of income and status among strata of employees, between urban/rural workers, between leaders/led
- Urban-rural income differentials narrowed considerable after 1951 ag purchase prices rose much more than prices for industrial products, industrial wages increased only marginally
- Also attacks on inequalities of social prestige and authority
o Rank insignia on Red Army uniforms abolished, intellectuals/supervisors/office workers/Party officials were sent down to engage in manual labour
- Direct access to higher education on the basis of competitive exams suspended
o Graduates supposed to work in industry/ag attempt to undercut social reproduction of uni elites recruited from educated urban families
- C Comm egalitarianism better understood as aiming at the fullest possible involvement of all people in national development by means of measures designed to ‘mute the consequences’ of existing inequalities effort to blunt the subjective impact which existing inequalities might have the on the initiative/dedication of have-nots
Reasons for China’s Distinctive Outcomes
- Why Comm were so willing after 1949 to pursue Soviet-style strategy of emphasis on heavy industries suddenly regained modern industrial plants in formerly enemy-occupied areas
o With modest investments such industries could quickly be rebuilt - Secondly, IR and strategic conditions affected development of the regime
o Strains in Sino-Soviet Alliance reorientation of C development from Soviet model o Decisive break resulted from C’s determination to development own nuclear capacity
- Thirdly, Party’s accumulated political capacities in prompting the Chinese Comms to undertake those agriculturally oriented and relatively participatory and egalitarian approaches to national development that have been the hallmark of new-regime China
o Already developed political relationship of CCP to peasantry was crucial advantage of direct political ties to peasant villages
o Rural cadres constituted invaluable grass-roots support and leadership for CCP to draw upon in the course of socialist mobilisation
o Comms were able to carry through collectivisation of agriculture smoothly by activating/extending their already existing political basis in the countryside
In turn made it possible to rely upon and actively shape ag growth and rural development as a part of a strategy of state-propelled national development
o Created persistent pulls toward the implementation/maintenance of relatively balanced and equalitarian politics of national development investments in ag and rural industries and social services, raise peasants toward national standards in education, health and consumption while not letting modern urban enclaves wide advantage
- Thus, revolutionary outcomes depended very much upon the accomplishments of the peasantry and its relationship to the state-building relationship that consolidated the Revolution
- Uniquely in China, the peasantry could not make its own revolution and the organised revolutionaries could not come to power directly within the cities and towns Comm and peasants necessarily allied to complete the Revolution
o In consequence special possibilities created for revolutionaries once in state power to use
participatory mobilisation in further transformation of economy/society and for peasant activities and welfare to become fundamental part of national development in China
Summary
- Revolutionary struggles have emerged from crises of state and class domination, and social-revolutionary outcomes have been shaped by obstacles/opportunities from those crises
- Likewise, social-revo outcomes have been shaped/limited by existing socioeconomic structures and
international circumstances within which revo leaderships have struggled to rebuild, consolidate and use state power
Factors that led up to the 4th May Movement - Foreign humiliation, century of humiliation - Western ideas
- Frustration with imperial rule - Need to build modern nation state - Frustration with current govt Bitter Revolution?
- Pain and struggle of China trying to find its modern identity
What factors caused the KMT to decline? What factors contributed to the CCP’s rise?
- Failure to consolidate national control
o Did not have resources for modern industries, proletarian mobilisation and military advantages of rail transportation
o Failed to break out of vicious circle of inadequate revenues and insufficient central political control o Huge sprawling army that was useless for waging war
- CCP able to penetrate rural communities, mobilise peasants whilst Kuomintang failed to consolidate state power on an urban basis
- KMT lacked revenue - Existence of warlords - Lack of popular support - Lack of foreign support - Corruption
- CCP’s rise:
o Base of popular support o Guerrilla warfare strategy o Land reform
o Strong ideology o Clear political structure o Charismatic leader