1911 Revolution Flashcards
9 October 1911
- bomb went off in the office of Literary Study Society
- Wuhan three-city complex in the Hubei province on the MIddle Yangzi
- 32 people publicly executed
10 October 1911
- two soldiers shot an officer
- mutinied, killed officers, occupied arsenal (3600 rebels vs 3000 Qing loyalists)
11 October 1911
- governor and forces flee
- leader = Li Yuanhong (shut up in aroom while the gentry-dominated local assembly put his name on a proclamation of a republican regime.)
30 October 1911
The Regent yields to revolutionary demands
- decrees cabinet reform, amnesties political prisoners, authorizes the Assembly to draft a constitution, and recognizes the revolutionaries as a legal political group
- Manchu power rapidly crumbles
abdication
12 February 1912
Role of Yuan Shikai in 1911
- Beiyang army gained control in Beijing in late November able to influence emperor
- December 7, 1911 given full powers to negotiate with rebel by Empress
- January 1912 elevated to the status of first-class marquis as sign of imperial faith
- 16 January presented a petition calling for abdication
Shikai givern presidency
- December 2 offered presidency if support republic
- April 1 Sun resigned, Yuan becomes president
- Sun lacked authority
Role of Tongmenghui in 1911
- Sun Yat-sen in America during rev.
- heard through newspaper
- Dec.29 > Sun Yat-sen is elected providsional presient of the republic by the Nanking Conference
- attended only three parliamentary sessions, and issued bonds worth $300,000 without any consultation.
- military governors and gentry leaders who ran much of Chinaowed nothing to Nanjing
Role of peasants in 1911 - secret societies connections
- many republican leaders were members of the Triad or ElderBrother Society
- republicans were often suspicious of secret societies as unreliable
- efforts to create a united front of peasant rebliousness and modern revolution failed
- class consciousness of many republicans, linked as they were to a modern bourgeoisie, hardly encouraged them to give any support to the struggle of the peasantry
Role of peasants in 1911 - rebellions
- In Szechuan the TMH would not have been capable of occupying the provinvial capital of Chengtu nad the norther part wihtout the assistance of the peasant froces of the Elder Brother Society
- “This new wave of peasant unrest was an integral part of the republican revolution of 1911” Jean Chesneaux
- More than 100,000 min-chun (people’s armies) joined Ch’en Chiung-ming, the military leader of TMH, surrounded Canton and entered it in November 1911
1911 - Chesneaux view on peasant role
“This new was of popular discontent, of primitive peasant riots, undoubtedly contributed as much to the fall of the dynasty as did the determined underground work of the militant republicans”
“Peasant risings played an essential role, creating a political and ideological vacuum, showing the isolation of the Manchus and the imminence of their fall”
1911 Chesneax view outcome
“The revolution… did nothing to change the structure of social relations, particularly in the rural areas”
1911 Fitzgerald radical rev?
Yet the decision to replace the dynasty, and the monarchy, with a republic was, at that time, a most radical step.
1911 Fenby role of Sun
Sun himself acknowledged that ‘this time I did not expend an ounce of strength’.
1911 Fenby democratic revolution?
The dynastic cycle of rise and fall had been played out as often over the centuries. The difference this time was that there was no new claimant to the throne.
