china - historical interpretations Flashcards
1911 revolution
“1911 was only a partial revolution. Representative government failed to emerge” - Micheal Lynch
Sun Yat Sen
“He was the father of China’s bourgeois democratic revolution” - Deng Mao
“The final collapse of the Qing Dynasty was to a considerable extent inspired by a revolutinairy from Guangdong named Sun Yat Sen” - Edwin Moise
Yuan Shikai’s betrayal - 1912
“Within a year of the end of the empire, China was back on a path of autocratic rule” - Jonathan Fenby
“Yuan acheived a virtual dictatoeship” - Immanuel Hsu
Warlord Period (1917 - 27)
“The 1920s saw the height of warlord disorder and the rise of a revolution to overcome this. The first aim of the revolution was national reunification” - Fairbank
New Cultural movement - 1917
“Intellectually and socially the new cultural movement was one of the most promising and exciting times in Chinese history” - Rana Mitter
May Fourth Movement
3,000 uni students protested
“The May 4th movement was an extreme radicalisation of political life the chief sign of which was the creation and rapid growth of revolutionary movements that planned not another 1911, not just a nationalist political revolution, but a socialist revolution as well” - Lucien Bianco
Northen Expedition - July 1926
80,000 soldiers led by 6,000 officers
“The victory that made the warlords retreat were won by arms and bribery, not evangelism of the masses” - Jonathan Fenby
Shanghai massacre - 12 April 1912
between 5,000 - 10,000 communists were killed in shanghai on day of massacre
“Chiang had bought about a bloodbath that virtually destroyed both the CCP and the workers movement in china’s largest city” - Maurice Mesiner
Red army - 1928 - 34
began with 5,000 soldiers
“Without a people’s army, the peasants have nothing” - MAo
Jiangxi Soviet reforms - 1931
“Jiangxi was a social laboratory for trying out new ideas” - Delia Davin
Nationalist Government - 1934 - 36
“The GMDs intitiatives did nothing to tackle China’s deep rooted problems.. lack of medical care, poor hosuing ignorance and poverty” - Tom Ryan
“If the communists by their violence alinated the scholars, the GMD by its selfish indifference alienated the peasantry” - CP fitzgerald
The New Life Movement - Fev 1934
“[TheNewLifeMovement] urged [women] to cultivate the ‘four virtues’ of chastity, appearance, speech and work, and were told not to be hoodwinked into blindly following feminist ideas.” - Jonathan Spence
The Long March - 1934 - 35
of original 100,000 only 7,000 survived
“Tactically the long march was a retreat but psychologically it imbued the communists with a strong sense of purpose. Organisationally it bought Mao to the forefront of leadership” - Craig Dietrich
Chiang
“The Japanese are a disease of the skin. The Communists are a disease of the heart” - Chiang
Yan’an - Dec 1936 (Primary)
Literacy rates rose from 1% in 36’ - 50% in 45’
Party membership rose from 40,000 in 37’ to 800,000 in 40’
“We Communists are like seeds and the people are the soil” -Mao
Yan’an (Secondary)
“By the end of 1938 Yan’an Way, the great red base was more than just a military outpost it was a shining beacon of fervour and patriotism, attracting students and intellectuals from all over China” - Han Suyin
“At Yan’an the communists brought new faith in action to the poor and oppressed” - Edgar Snow
Rectification camps - Yan’an
“Rectification camps aimed to teach the communists Mao’s own revolutionary ideas and to eliminate the influence of political opponents” - Stuart Schram
Second sino Japanese War (1937 - 45)
“The nationalist regime decayed under wartime circumstances” - Peter Zarrow
“The war exhausted the Nationalist Government, whilst giving the Communists a chance to expand’ - Immanuel Hsu
1.5 mill died of mistreatment by army
Rape of Nanjing - Dec 1937
“The Rape of Nanjing is the Forgotten Holocaust of WW2” - Iris Chang
Over 200,000 civilians died during rape of nanjing
CCP efforts during war
Red army grew from 500,000 members in 1940 to over 1 mill in 1945
“The CCPs greatest ally was the Japanese army whose atrocities left the peasanrty in such desperate straights that it had no recourse but to seek Red Army’s protection” - Lucisn Bianco
Chinese Civil War - 1946 - 1949
“The reasons the GMD lost the civil war were both stupidities on the battlefield and incompetence behind the lines” - John King Fairbank
“Throughout the wars, the GMD was continouly beaten because it had no soul” - American Journalist
Social reforms - May 1 1950
Marriage law (concubinage banned, foot binding banned)
“Women hold up half the sky” - Mao
“Women in the People’s Republic of China enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of political, economic, cultural, social and family life” - Chinese Constitution
by the 70s almost 50% of china’s doctors were women
Land reforms - 1950
“Peasants who killed with their bare hand landlords who oppressed them were wedded to the new revolutionary order in a way that passive spectators never could be” - Craig Dietrich
1.5 million landlords executed in speak bitterness sessions
Three Antis Campaigns - 1951
“The Three Antis were an extension of Mao’s Recitification Campaigns” - Trevor Sowdon
Five Antis Campaigns - 1952
The Five Antis were an opportunity to pulverise China’s capitalists politically” - Jack Gray
Hundred Flowers Campaign - 1957
“The Hundred Flowers campaineg demonstrated Mao’s naivety and then his utter ruthlessness” = Jonathon spence
“Mao had made not one but two misjudgments. He underestimated the volume and bitterness of the criticisms and the Party’s ability to withstand them” - Phillip Short
Anti Rightist Campaign
400,000 ppl send to prison camps
“was a way of distinguishing between fragrant flowers and posinous weeds” - mao
“intellectuals are often ignorant and have little or no experience in practical matters” - Mao
The great leap forward - 1958 - 61
china’s grain production dropped 30% from 58’ - 59’
“mao had an almost metaphysical disregard for reality” - jung chang
“It was a failure on a grand scale, dominating and distorting the social and political lives of the Peoples Republic” - Maurice Mesiner
Famine
30 mill dead
“The great leap forward had plated itself as a mao made catastrophe”- John King Fairbank
“Famine culture justified desperate practices such as swap child, make food” - Jasper Becker
Socialist education movement - sep 1962
“Never forget class struggle. From now on we must talk about this every year, every month, every day” - Mao
Learn from Campaigns - 1963
“The Learn from the PLA campaign characterised members of the military as virtuous socialist heroes their political consciousness was the model all Chinese should emulate” - Stuart Schram
Red Guard - 1966 - 76 (cultural revolution)
over 10 mill red guards
over 100 mill ppl were persecuted by the red guards and 20 mills died
” The Red Guards were repressed angry and aware of their powerlessness” - Jonathan Spence
