china - historical interpretations

Question 1

1911 revolution

Answer 1

“1911 was only a partial revolution. Representative government failed to emerge” - Micheal Lynch

Question 2

Sun Yat Sen

Answer 2

“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

Question 3

Yuan Shikai’s betrayal - 1912

Answer 3

“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

Question 4

Warlord Period (1917 - 27)

Answer 4

“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

Question 5

New Cultural movement - 1917

Answer 5

“Intellectually and socially the new cultural movement was one of the most promising and exciting times in Chinese history” - Rana Mitter

Question 6

May Fourth Movement

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Northen Expedition - July 1926

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Shanghai massacre - 12 April 1912

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Red army - 1928 - 34

Answer 9

began with 5,000 soldiers

“Without a people’s army, the peasants have nothing” - MAo

Question 10

Jiangxi Soviet reforms - 1931

Answer 10

“Jiangxi was a social laboratory for trying out new ideas” - Delia Davin

Question 11

Nationalist Government - 1934 - 36

Answer 11

“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

Question 12

The New Life Movement - Fev 1934

Answer 12

​“[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

Question 13

The Long March - 1934 - 35

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Chiang

Answer 14

“The Japanese are a disease of the skin. The Communists are a disease of the heart” - Chiang

Question 15

Yan’an - Dec 1936 (Primary)

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Yan’an (Secondary)

Answer 16

“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

Question 17

Rectification camps - Yan’an

Answer 17

“Rectification camps aimed to teach the communists Mao’s own revolutionary ideas and to eliminate the influence of political opponents” - Stuart Schram

Question 18

Second sino Japanese War (1937 - 45)

Answer 18

“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

Question 19

Rape of Nanjing - Dec 1937

Answer 19

“The Rape of Nanjing is the Forgotten Holocaust of WW2” - Iris Chang

Over 200,000 civilians died during rape of nanjing

Question 20

CCP efforts during war

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Chinese Civil War - 1946 - 1949

Answer 21

“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

Question 22

Social reforms - May 1 1950

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Land reforms - 1950

Answer 23

“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

Question 24

Three Antis Campaigns - 1951

Answer 24

“The Three Antis were an extension of Mao’s Recitification Campaigns” - Trevor Sowdon

Question 25

Five Antis Campaigns - 1952

Answer 25

The Five Antis were an opportunity to pulverise China’s capitalists politically” - Jack Gray

Question 26

Hundred Flowers Campaign - 1957

Answer 26

“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

Question 27

Anti Rightist Campaign

Answer 27

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

Question 28

The great leap forward - 1958 - 61

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Famine

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Socialist education movement - sep 1962

Answer 30

“Never forget class struggle. From now on we must talk about this every year, every month, every day” - Mao

Question 31

Learn from Campaigns - 1963

Answer 31

“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

Question 32

Red Guard - 1966 - 76 (cultural revolution)

Answer 32

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