Chinese History 405-412 9/27

MWH p. 405-412

How did the Communists come to power in China?

1. Revolution and the warlord era

a. Explain the three major crises of this era?

i. The Opium Wars with Europe caused China's sea ports to be taken over by foreign powers.

ii. Japan's war with China caused land to be taken away and they were forced to pay for it.

iii. Civil wars caused the Chinese government to fail and China to slowly split.

b. What was the immediate cause of the 1911 revolution?

Radical ideas about forming a democratic government and reforming the government which upset the people when the government tried to respond to it by making false promises.

c. What were the two important positive developments that took place during the Warlord Era?

i. The May the Fourth Movement began in 1919 which was a student demonstration in Beijing protesting the warlords and against traditional Chinese culture and anti-Japanese.

ii.The KMT gradually grew stronger and succeeded into bring China as a whole by putting the warlords under control by 1928.

2. The Kuomintang, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and Chiang Kai-shek

a. What were Sun Yat-sen's three goals for China?

i. Nationalism- make china independent, untied, and strong.

ii. Democracy- Ruled by people themselves not by warlords after educated the people of democratic self government techniques.

iii. Land reform- economic development and redistribution of land to peasants.

b. What three steps did Chiang take to consolidate power?

i. His Northern March which consisted in destroying the warlords of central and northern china.

ii. Removing the communists from powerful places and trying to remove them fully.

iii. And to ultimately help out the people with money in China such as landowners, industrial owners etc..

3. Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party

a. How did the Communists survive the extermination campaigns?

They marched 6000 miles to find safely when only 20,000 made it they were able to start a new base in the Yenan in the Shensi province.

b. Why did Mao and the Communists gain support?

i. KMT spent to much time looking after wealthy people (industrialists, landowners, bankers) Nothing for the peasants.

ii. They had not improved the factor conditions but they did make laws for them and did not find it necessary to enforce them.

iii. KMT didn't improve poverty for the peasants who had trouble getting meals and even living on land.

iv. The KMT didn't resist the Japanese, they felt it was more important to defeat the communists than the Japanese, so the Communists though this could be played against the KMT to gain support.

4. Briefly summarize how the CCP won their struggle with the KMT, and give 2 reasons
They were able to gain support of the peasants by promises of land and getting rid of the landowners, industrialists, bankers. Basically everything the KMT wasn't doing that was annoying the Chinese the communists were going to do. They also sough to get rid of Japan which was a huge support boost for them and gave them time to increase their, armies and bases by 1945 they had nineteen base areas controlling 100 million people.