HIST362 Study Guide

Unit 8: Two Revolutions in China: Liberalism and Marxism in a New Context

8a. Provide a concise narrative of the republican and communist revolutions in China

China experienced two revolutions during the 20th century: 1.) the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 which overthrew the imperial Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China and 2.) the Communist Chinese Revolution led by Mao Zedong, which established the People's Republic of China in 1949.

The Republic of China

  • What were the primary causes of the Xinhai Revolution (or Republican Revolution of 1911)? Describe its political aftermath.
  • What aspects of the Qing Dynasty (also called the Manchu) did the revolutionaries object to?
  • What role did Sun Yat-Sen play in 1912?
  • How did the agrarian nature of Chinese society influence the forms of government that developed?
  • What steps did China's Republican revolutionary leaders take to centralize the government?
  • What role did Sun Yat-Sen play in 1918?
  • Describe Sun Yat-Sen's three stages of revolution? How were these stages reflected in the French and Russian revolutions?

Several factors sparked the Xinhai or Republican Revolution and the creation of the Republic of China (1911), including a history of corruption by the Qing Dynasty, subjugation to Western and Japanese powers, widespread poverty, and influences from revolutions in other countries. Ethnic groups incited the Republican movements to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, after centuries of Manchu rule.

In 1911, China had experienced 3,000 years of organized, centralized political control, and intensely conservative traditions. The dynasty collapsed in response to grain shortages, the decline of the trained bureaucracy, Christian missions, and the rise of the merchant class which demanded to be heard.

In January 1912, Sun Yat-Sen (1866–1925), the revolutionary leader of the Kuomintang (also spelled Guomindang), became provisional president, but a month later he agreed to let Yuan Shikai replace him as part of a political compromise. In February 1912, Yuan was inaugurated as the first president of the Republic of China. Meanwhile, the child Puyi abdicated as the last Manchu emperor.

The Republican Revolution built on China's previous traditions and promoted efficient administration and organization. However, Sun Yat-Sen's political philosophy had centered on the three modern ideals of nationalism, democracy, and people's livelihood – which he had called the Three Principles of the People (san min zhuyi). The Country Study readings explain that the principle of nationalism called for overthrowing the Manchus and ending foreign hegemony over China. The second principle, democracy, described Sun's goal of a popularly-elected republican government. People's livelihood, referred to the socialist goal of helping the common people through regulation of the ownership of the means of production and land.

This revolution ultimately failed, due to decades of infighting that followed among Sun Yat-Sen's nationalist supporters, peasants organizing across the countryside, and the growing industrial urban workers, who became the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.

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The People's Republic of China

  • What were the primary causes of the Chinese Revolution that led to the creation of the People's Republic of China in 1949? Describe its political aftermath.
  • What were the most important goals and ideals of the cultural movement that followed the failed May 4th Movement in 1919?
  • Describe the split between Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Kuomintang, and Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
  • What were Mao Zedong's most important political goals and objectives for Chinese society?
  • What was The Long March and the Red Army.
  • Describe the experiences and mentality of Chinese Communists.
  • How did religious and secular worldviews conflict during the Chinese Revolution?
  • What were the goals of The Great Leap Forward?

The Chinese revolution of 1949 pitted Chiang Kai-shek, the nationalist leader of the Kuomintang, who served as the leader of the Republic of China in mainland China from 1928 to 1949 and in Taiwan until his death in 1972, against the communist leader Mao Zedong. This communist revolution transformed China's economy and had a violent impact on its society.

Chiang Kai-shek, was Sun Yat-Sen's successor as leader of the Kuomintang. While he had participated in training in Bolshevik Russia, he was Christian, fairly conservative, and received support from China's wealthy landowners, new industrialists, and business elite. Note that, while he served as the national governor of China until the late 1930's, a central government did not exist and the country was divided, with ongoing conflict and instability.

Chiang Kai-shek looked to foreign investment and supported modernization in the coastal cities, but the interior of the China saw continual infighting among the warlords. Between 1931 and 1938 the Japanese invaded and occupied Manchuria and significant areas of northern China. 

In April 1927, Chiang Kai-shek launched a violent purge of the communists party in Shanghai. The attacks continued in the 1930's, as Mao Zedong, the communist leader, tried to rebuild in the countryside with renewed support from the peasants and lower working class. In 1934, a successful series of military assaults ultimately forced what was left of Mao's Red Army to escape from the southern provinces in a remarkable 6,000 mile Long March to regroup in the caves of Yan'an in northern China.

From 1934–1950, the Communist party was left it relative isolation as Mao rebuilt the People's Army and strengthened his support with the peasants who were interested in land reform, increased literacy, and a more equitable society. Meanwhile, Mao establish his nationalist credentials by leading the fight against Japanese occupation. By 1950, the Kuomintang were forced to flee to Taiwan.

Once in power, Mao Zedong, was able to realize many of his communist revolutionary ideals. These included nationalizing the economy to force rapid industrial growth, redistributing land ownership in the countryside to the peasants, establishing literacy programs, and banishing all foreign economic and cultural influence. During the 1950's and 1960's Mao instituted several destructive and violent initiatives, such as the Great Leap Forward and The Cultural Revolution, to eliminate all political and cultural hierarchy to create a more egalitarian society.

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8b. Analyze similarities and differences between the Marxist revolutions in Russia and China

  • How do the values Mao Zedong expresses in his writings compare with the values of the Russian revolutionaries?
  • What differences and similarities do you perceive between the Chinese and Soviet versions to create a planned economy?

The Russian and Chinese revolutions were similar on many fronts. Both revolutions unseated long-standing monarchies, and both communist parties rose to power during the chaos followed World War I and World War II. Moreover, each revolution had several stages. Removal of the monarch resulted in civil war as various revolutionary factions fought for political power. Each country succeeded in modernizing and industrializing their large countries.

However, Russia had a much larger population of industrial workers, while China had a large rural peasant base with a tradition that idealized peasant life. Since the Soviet Union was the world's first communist state, their support for the Chinese Revolution and Mao was vital, despite their many differences. The Soviet model supported the Chinese Communist Party move toward totalitarianism.

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8c. Compare the mechanisms of revolutionary violence which took place during the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions

  • In what ways did the Chinese government use violence against its people to achieve its ends?
  • How did Mao Zedong justify the use of violence against the Chinese people?
  • How was his justification of violence different from that of other revolutionaries you studied in this course?

Although many revolutions have advocated for using violence as a means to an end, Mao wrote that revolution was fundamentally a violent process. While the French revolutionaries used wide-scale violence to destroy political rivals and individuals they believed to be enemies of the revolution during the Reign of Terror (an estimated 30,000 people died), the Russian and Chinese communists seemed willing to accept massive death tolls as merely a harsh consequence of revolutionary change.

Lenin also advocated for mass violence during the revolution, but researchers have estimated that Stalin's forced collectivization effort led to the death of nearly 10 million people in the Soviet countryside during the Soviet famine of 1932–33. Additionally, in order to eradicate "enemies of the working class", Stalin allegedly imprisoned more than a million people and executed at least 700,000 individuals during the "Great Purge" between 1934 and 1939.

The extraordinary number of deaths during the Chinese revolution is even more mind-boggling. As with the Russian efforts to modernize their agricultural and industrialization practices, during Mao's Great Leap Forward, mandatory collectivization and forced labor caused 18–30 million people to die due to the famine that ensued. We might classify these civilian deaths as collateral damage from radical change. The Cultural Revolution not only damaged China's economy, but tens of millions of people were persecuted, with an estimated death toll ranging from hundreds of thousands to 20 million, according to Wikipedia.

Review The Chinese Revolution Part II, World Revolutions by Thomas O'Brien and Cultural Revolution.


8d. Identify the ways in which the Chinese Revolution continues to shape global realities

  • What were the main short and long term outcomes of the Chinese Revolution?
  • What are the main reasons for the breakdown of Soviet and Chinese relations? 

The Chinese communists transformed the society of China, established a centralized state power, unified the disintegrated territories, created a national market and built the basis of China's modern economic development. Following the revolution, an intense and impressive modernization and industrialization process began, which led China a long way, from a basic industrial base to one of the world's largest economies.

After the Communist Revolution of 1949, Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan, and the tension between Taiwan and mainland China continues. Culturally, the Communist Revolution abolished the traditional subjugation of women and practice of forced marriage, and made the practice of religion illegal. In the mid 1950s, relations between the Soviet Union and China broke down, and the two countries were at the brink of war many times throughout the next decades.

In non-communist countries, the revolutions of Russia, China, and other countries such as Korea, Vietnam, and many in Latin America, created a fear of communism that pervaded much of their daily life. Those who fought for expanding rights were often accused of being Communists, though few were.

Review Cultural Revolution from Wikipedia and Capitalism, Socialism, and the 1949 Chinese Revolution: What Was the Cold War All about? by Satya Gabriel.


Unit 8 Vocabulary

  • Chiang Kai-shek
  • Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
  • Kuomintang (Guomindang)
  • Manchu
  • Mao Zedong
  • May 4th Movement
  • The People's Republic of China
  • Qing Dynasty
  • Red Army
  • The Republican China
  • Sun Yat-Sen
  • The Great Leap Forward
  • The Long March
  • Xinhai Revolution (Republican Revolution of 1911)