4.1 - Causes of Chinese Revolution INTERPRETATIONS

Question 1

Interpretations
Republic of China
x4

Answer 1

• “The true face of the 1911 Revolution belonged to Yuan Shikai, not Sun Yat-sen.” (Zarrow)
• “a most radical step… wildly idealistic, unpractical and reckless.” (Fitzgerald)
• “[Yuan] had no vision of a new system” (Fairbank)
• “brought a ray of light into the age-long darkness of China, but for a short time only” (Wu)

Question 2

Interpretations
Yuan as Emperor
x2

Answer 2

• “Aroused fiercer and more determined opposition” (Lynch)
• The presidency had become a military dictatorship” (Mühlhahn)

Question 3

Interpretations
May 30 Incident
x1

Answer 3

• “helped usher in a new hope for social mobilisation and revolutionary upsurge” (Karl)

Question 4

Interpretations
New Culture Movement
x1

Answer 4

• “intellectually and socially one of the most promising and exciting times in Chinese history” (Mitter)

Question 5

Interpretations
May 4th Movement
x4

Answer 5

• “indicated the beginning of a credible and important nationalist movement” (Short)
• “yearning for national renewal” (Short)
• “a sense of real and impending crisis; a combination of a plurality of ideas aimed at ‘saving the nation’” (Miter)
• “Chinese students and intellectuals… turned even more eagerly to revolutionary theory” (Lynch)

Question 6

Interpretations
Shanghai Massacre
x2

Answer 6

• “a bloodbath that virtually destroyed both the CCP and the worker’s movement in China’s largest city” (Meisner)
• “an orgy of counter-revolutionary violence” (Meisner)

Question 7

Interpretations
Jiangxi Soviet
x2

Answer 7

• “Social laboratory” (Davin)
• “first opportunity to test [the Communists’] ability to govern” (Shiping)

Question 8

Interpretations
Nanjing Decade
x3

Answer 8

• “the unification achieved in this decade was more apparent than real” (Bianco)
• “stunning accomplishments from a position of unenviable weakness” (Kirby)
• “in every respect China… was solving her problems, at least on an experimental scale” (Gray)

Question 9

Interpretations
Jiang and Fascism
x2

Answer 9

• “wonderful medicine exactly suited to China” (Ebrey)
• “a regime Fascist in every quality except efficiency” (Fitzgerald)

Question 10

Interpretations
New Life Movement
x2

Answer 10

• Aimed to “create a citizenry that was self-aware, politically conscious, and committed to the nation” (Mitter)
• Achieved little “other than intruding into people’s personal lives” (Ryan)

Question 11

Interpretations
Weaknesses of Nationalist Government
x2

Answer 11

• “the government was ‘strong on the outside but weak on the inside’” (Hsu)
• “fundamental problems of social and economic injustices and the chronic ill of deficit spending” (Hsu)

Question 12

Interpretations
Long March
x7

Answer 12

• “What began as a rout ended as a legend” (Lynch)
• “later presented as a great achievement in Communist history, was a nightmare of death and pain while it was in progress” (Spence)
• “a true story exploited for propaganda purposes” (Jocelyn)
• “contributed enormously to the perception of [Mao] as a man of destiny” (Meisner)
• “dazzling, pyrotechnic display of mobile warfare… that left pursuing enemies confused” (Short)
• “the biggest armed propaganda tour in history… millions of peasants… are no longer afraid of [the Red Army]” (Snow)
• “Mao was the prophet who had led survivors through the wilderness” (Meisner)

Question 13

Interpretations
Sino Japanese War
x6

Answer 13

• “[the Nanjing Government’s] fate was determined… by the menace of Japanese imperialism” (Fairbank)
• “Chinese armies overall were ineffective. For all the bravery of their defence of Shanghai, the Nationalists lost many of their best troops” (Zarrow)
• “Jiang was double-dealing on a colossal scale” (Rooney)
• “[CCP] was struggling for nationalist goals more vigorously and more competently than the GMD” (Moise)
• “It was the Communist armies which impressed the Chinese public” (Gray)
• Jiang’s effort to protect Wuhan was “one of the grossest acts of violence against its own people” (Mitter)

Question 14

Interpretations
Civil War
x4

Answer 14

• Nationalists “specialise in keeping land and losing men” (Ryan)
• “every… Nationalist military weakness was an area of Red Army strength” (Bianco)
• “people’s war” (Chesneaut)
• “Conscription [to the CCP]… was an honour in Liberated Areas” (Bianco)

Question 15

Interpretations
Significance of Yanan
x2

Answer 15

• “would reinforce many of the ideals that became fundamental to the Chinese Communists” (Ryan)
• “Mao’s capital” (Chang and Halliday)

Question 16

Interpretations
Success of CCP in Revolution
x1

Answer 16

• “The Nationalist revolution failed because it did not aspire to fundamental social change” (Mackerras)

Question 17

Interpretations
GMD Leadership Struggle
x2

Answer 17

• [The left faction of the GMD] “remained a house divided against itself” (Helmut)
• [Jiang’s decision to travel to Japan] “cleared the way for his rivals to tear at each other’s throats” (Seagrave)