Northern Expedition Flashcards
1
Q
NE events - lead up
A
- Sun Yat-Sen returned to Guandong in 1922 to mount expedition
- area in control of Hakka general
- Cominter refused to back campaign
- premature, adventurous and doomed to failure
- party’s first task should be to develop an army and win over the masses
2
Q
NE events - Whampoa
A
- set up by Sun in 1924
- accepted all persons regardless of their party alignment
- NRA was regarded as a progressive force on behalf of ordinary people persecuted by warlords, for which it received warm welcome and strong support from peasants and workers
- trained over 7000 in 2 years
3
Q
NE mobilisation
A
- 1 July 1926 – mobilisation of the Northern Expedition
- 6 July 1926 – Chiang elected chairman of CEC – full control of party’s military & political organisations
- Chiang Kai-shek: ‘To protect the welfare of the people we must overthrow all warlords and wipe out reactionary power so that we may implement the Three People’s Principles and complete the National Revolution.’
- 27 July 1926 – began march
- 85,000 troops led by 6,000 Huangpu officers to face 750,000 troops
- Hallett Abend of the New York Times judged theundertaking to be ‘hopeless folly’
4
Q
Wuhan government
A
- expelled Chiang 17 April 1927
- led by Wang Jingwei
- denouncedhim as the ‘counter-revolutionary chief.
- mass organizations and trade unions sprouted
- surrounding countryside, more than2 million peasants and small farmers joined Communist-led associations
- confiscated big estates and shared out grain
- the people, in general, seem to have entered into a realm of freedom and safety never before enjoyed, – North China Daily
5
Q
Nanjing Government
A
- Chiang resigned as head on August 6 1926
- in talks for a rapprochement August
- Wuhan pressured to expel Communists
- July 15 1927 - purging of Communsts in Wuhan ordered
- military coup by Communist troops in Nanchang (Jianxi province)
- result = Nanjing govt stronger - 8000 Nationalists dead
6
Q
NE reasons for success - propaganda
A
- Communists motivated the grassroots, and worked with peasants
- backed by propagandaworkers and the Blood Flower Troupe to perform revolutionary dramas
7
Q
NE reasons for sucess - alliances with warlords
A
- alliance was formed with the trio of Guangxi generals
- Christian General Feng Yuxiang bribed with $2 million a month
- “despite its claimto want to eradicate warlordism, the KMT was, itself, part of a warlord coalition, led by a man whose power base was the military” Fenby
8
Q
NE reasons for success - popular support
A
- Nationalists were guided by peasants along hidden paths to attack
- “the KMT was a real, organized political force, with a wide-ranging appeal” Fenby
- combinationof the NRA and the promise of modernization and land reform gave the Northern Expedition an appeal of a kind that proved irresistible.
- “The victories that made the warlords retreat were won by arms and bribery, not evangelism or the masses.” Fenby
