Shanghai Massacres and Extermination Campaigns: Consequences, Long March, Xi'an Incident, and Reforms

Shanghai Massacres and Extermination Campaigns

• NRA liberated Shanghai from the warlords
• Chiang feared a general strike and a CCP takeover
• Chiang attacked and killed anyone suspected to be communist
• White Terror, many casualties

Consequences of the Massacres

• Failed to crush communists
• Split within the KMT, and Chiang expelled from the party
• Policy of the united front between KMT and Communists was affirmed
  • Policy meant peace between both parties
  • In a near future calling for elections for rightful power in China
• Stalin rejected this policy
• CCP weakened
• KMT was united again, Chiang was leader again
• CCP tried Stalin's aggressive policy, were crushed each time
• KMT broke off all relations with the CCP
• 1927 was disastrous for CCP
• New Soviet advisers were sent into CCP, it was now fully under Soviet influence

Long March 1934-35

• CCP's survival was the creation of 12 rural bases in remote regions
• There they could recruit local peasants desperate because of bad harvest and such
• KMT was distracted by Japan, resumed campaign, CCP had to evacuate
• KMT interrupted by Japan again, negotiated a ceasefire
• KMT cut off food supplies, sent Nationalist forces by land and air, CCP had to evacuate to an even more remote location
• This led to the Long March, lasted a year and covered 8000km2
  • Hostile territories, defend against KMT, warlords' attacks, disease, hypothermia, and starvation
  • Ten thousand communists made it out, but how?
    • Warlords couldn't be trusted, helped Mao and CCP
    • Chiang's operations were ruined by harsh weather
    • Miscalculations in surprise operations against CCP
    • Mao gained support along the way from peasants
    • Chiang was distracted by Japan

The Xi'an Incident

• CCP wasn't safe from KMT
• Chiang was kidnapped, CCP strengthens
• Chiang accused of appeasement
• Mao accused Chiang of appeasing Japan
• Chiang was actually strengthening and buying armaments against Japan
• However, this was secret, so Chiang couldn't retaliate Mao's accusations
• CCP gained support from warlords and Chinese patriotic
• Chiang wanted to first get rid of CCP, then Japan
• Mao responded by creating a united front (KMT, CCP, and warlords) against Japan

The Kidnapping of Chiang and Its Consequences

• Chiang was rounded up and imprisoned
• Mao demanded Chiang's elimination but was overruled by Stalin
• He believed that the best leader to fight a war against Japan was Chiang
• Chiang was freed, and a united front was formed between KMT and CCP

Attempts at Modernization and Reform

• Chiang couldn't modernize China because of CCP and preparations for the Japanese war
• Chiang reappointed head of the KMT government
• KMT wing had relations with CCP, but they cut them off
• Two wings of KMT were reunited again
• KMT wanted a government without Chiang, who had forcibly resigned
• Communist uprising and so Chiang was the KMT leader once more
• Chiang won support from many groups in China
• Communists were marginalized

The New Government and Administration

• Chiang created a new blueprint for China, of five departments which controlled the business of government
• 'Parliament' was made, an unelected body, members appointed by the government
• Chiang was a dictator
• A party dictatorship was established to impose regime on China
• Tight control over press, education, and arts
• Police and Blue Shirts conducted a reign of terror against dissidents

Economic and Financial Reforms

• Ambitious plans for financial, agricultural, and industrial reforms
• Enlightened reforms, if they would've been effective, would've undermined CCP
• Ambitious plans were impossible to be made
  • China was still divided
  • Warlords, though defeated, were not eliminated completely
  • Money was spent on military forces against CCP, warlords, or Japan
  • No money left for said ambitious plans
• In the countryside, nothing changed much, so it was easy for the CCP to gain support from peasants and farm people