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Kuomintang and Communist (1928-1937)
Kuomintang
In October 1928 the Kuomintang formally established the Nanjing government. Chiang Kai-shek became chairman of Kuomintang, also known as the National Party. At first many people were against dictatorship by Chiang Kai-shek. However, Chiang maintained his power thanks to giant military power and support by bourgeoisie. He tried to construct a modern state against the background of property. It was the CCP that survived with a display of "liberation of the people" which Kuomintang abandoned.
Communist
Although the force of the CCP was swept away by Kuomintang, Mao reconstructed the rest of his unit, aiming to establish an " army for the people." This is the model for the Red army. The units that survived the guerilla wars laid the groundwork for a revolution, a strategy to "dominate over city by farm village"-to use the farmlands to win the cities.
The Establishment of Manchkuo
In September 1931 Japan initiated the seizure of Manchuria. Japan established the puppet regime of "Manchukuo" under the Qing's last emperor, P'u Yi. That caused an anti-Japanese campaign everywhere in China, but the Kuomintang considered it more important to exterminate the CCP than resist Japanese invaders. That made the people gradually doubt the Kuomintang.
Long March
When Chiang's fifth extermination campaign began in October 1933, the
Communists suddenly changed their strategy. Other members of the party who advocated meeting Chiang's troops in pitched battle were undermining Mao's authority. But this strategy proved disastrous. By October 1934 the Communist had suffered heavy losses and were driven into a small area in Jiangxi. On the brink of defeat, the Communists decided to retreat from Jiangxi and march north to Shanxi.
There was not one 'Long March' but several, as various Communist armies in the south made their way to Shaanxi. The most famous was the march from Jiangxi Province which began in October 1934, took a year to complete and covered 8000 km over some of the most inhospitable terrain. On the way the Communists confiscated the property of officials, landlords and tax collectors, redistributed the land to peasants, armed thousands of peasants with weapons captured from the Kuomintang and left soldiers behind to organize guerrilla groups to harass the enemy.
Of the 90,000 people who started out in Jiangxi only 20,000 made it to
Shangxi because of fatigue, sickness, exposure, enemy attacks and desertion all took their toll. The march proved, however, that the
Chinese peasants could fight if they were given a method, organization, leadership, hope and weapons. It brought together many people who later held top positions after 1949m including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Lin Biao, Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shoqi. It also established Mao as the paramount leader of the Chinese Communist movement. During the march a meeting of the CCP hierarchy recognized Mao's overall leadership, and he assumed supreme responsibility for strategy.
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