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Peasant Mobilization in North China and the Origins of Yenan Communism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Carl E. Dorris
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Extract

The outbreak of war in North China during the summer of 1937 was the watershed in the growth of the revolutionary movement in China. Seemingly overnight the Communist Party made rapid new gains in strength and territory. From a small, isolated soviet in the desolation of North-west China on the Shensi-Kansu border, the Party enlarged its territories, and by the end of the war communist-backed resistance governments ruled huge portions of North and Central China. In the same period Party membership grew from a little over 20,000 members in 1936 to nearly 1,250,000 members at the Seventh Party Congress in April 1945, and the Red Army, which had dwindled to a mere 30,000 men in the course of the Long March, swelled to over one million men by the war's end. This new political and military framework formed the structural backbone which enabled the Communists to come to power four years later.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 68 , December 1976 , pp. 697 - 719
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1976

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References

1. Mao noted in a preface to a short propaganda tract that Chin-Ch'a-Chi was “a model for other places to follow in implementing the Three Principles and in arousing the masses closely to co-ordinate and to assist in the War of Resistance.” In a speech to recent graduates of Resistance University in 1938 Liu proclaimed that the border region “was the first model for the whole nation, telling the whole nation about methods of founding resistance bases and proving the great possibilities for the creation of such bases at the enemy's rear.”

2. Johnson, Chalmers in Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962)Google Scholar was the first to focus on the war and forces of nationalism generated in the conflict as prime motive forces in providing the Chinese Communists with a mass base sufficient to win the Chinese revolution. For counter-views stressing class appeals, see Gillin, Donald, “‘Peasant nationalism ’ in the history of Chinese Communism,” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, pp. 269–89;Google ScholarSelden, Mark, The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971);Google Scholar and Seybolt, Peter, “Yenan education and the Chinese Revolution” (Harvard Ph.D. dissertation, 1969).Google Scholar Tetsuya Kataoka's study, Resistance and Revolution in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), is an interesting twist on Johnson's thesis. Kataoka agrees that the war was crucial to the communist victory, but he sees the communist victory not as a product of nationalism and political modernization but instead a return or restoration of customary values through the reliance on traditional self-defence methods of the min-t'uan variety.Google Scholar

3. Selden, The Yenan Way, pp. 175–200.

4. Tse-tung, Mao, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (SW) (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), Vol. I, p. 313.Google Scholar

5. Ibid. Vol. I, pp. 295–308.

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10. Ibid.

11. Chen, P'eng, “Lun Chin-Ch'a-Chi pien-ch'u t'u-ti cheng-ts'e” (“On the Chin-Ch'a-Chi border region land policy”), in T'u-ti cheng-ts'e chung-yao wen-chien hui-chi (Kalgan, 1946), pp. 43–49.Google Scholar

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14. For a discussion of techniques of mass mobilization following this strategy see Chi-Lu-Yü fourth district (Huai-yang) committee, Tsen-yang fa-tung ch'ün-chung (How to Mobilize the Masses) np., 1940).

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16. Liu Shao-ch'i, “Kuan-yü ch'ün-chung kung-tso ti chi-ko wen-t'i” (“Several problems concerning mass work”) in Chan-hsien-she (Battleline press) (ed.), Ch'ün-chung kung-tso chih-nan (Guide to Mass Work) (np., 1945), pp. 15–17.

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19. Te-huai, P'eng, “Kuan-yü Hua-pei ken-chü-ti kung-tso ti pao-kao” (“A report on North China base area work”), Chen-li (Truth), No. 14 (20 August 1943), pp. 31–32.Google Scholar

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21. Chi-Lu-Yü fourth district committee, Tsen-yang fa-tung ch'ün-chung.

22. Throughout most of 1939 and 1940 Wang Ming consistently appears in the pages of the Hsin Chung-hua pao (New China News), a Yenan periodical, as one of the principal, if not the major, speakers at Party and public functions in Yenan city. At least two of his major works appeared in press in 1940. In July Chieh-fang-she (Liberation Press) republished his essay“ Wei Chung-kung keng-chia pu-erh-sai-wei-k'o-hua erh tou-cheng” (“Struggle in order to bolshevize more thoroughly the Chinese Communist Party”) and in November The Commonist included a long article of Wang's entitled, “Lun Ma-Lieh chu-i chueh-ting ts'e-lueh ti chi-pen yuan-tse” (“On several basic principles of Marxist-Leninist decisive strategy ”).

23. P'eng Chen, Chin-Ch'a-Chi cheng-ts'e.

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30. Ho-shou, Wang, “Mu-ch'ien kan-pu cheng-ts'e-chung chi-ko wen-t'i” (“Several problems in present cadre policy”), Kung-ch'an-tang jen, No. 3 (December 1939), pp. 23–31. According to Wang only older districts in Shen-Kan-Ning had a high ratio of experienced cadres from soviet days, reaching perhaps 30% of the work force.Google Scholar

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35. “Liu Shao-ch'i t'ung-chih pao-kao ”(“Report of Comrade Liu Shao-ch'i”).in Ch'ün-ehung kung-tso chih-nan, pp. 29–35.

36. “Chin-Ch'a-Chi pien-ch'u jcn-min wu-chuang k'ang-Jih tzu-wei-tui tzu-chih chang-ch'eng” (“The organizational form of the Chin-Ch'a-Chi border region people's armed anti-Japanese self-defence forces”), in K'ang-Jih ken-chü-ti cheng-ts'e t'iao-li hui-chi: Chin-Ch'a-Chi chih-pu, pp. 99–105.

37. Su, Chang, “Ho-tso-she-fa ti hsiu-cheng ching-k'uang chi cheng-chuang kung-tso tsung-chieh” (“A summary of the revisions of co-operative principles and the rectification of co-operative units”), in Hsien-hsing fa-ling hui-chi (A Collection of Current Statutes and Ordinances) (Kalgan, 1945), pp. 656–62.Google Scholar

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39. Ibid. pp. 3–11.

40. Ibid. pp. 32–51.

41. Ibid. pp. 26–31.

42. Ibid. pp. 60–63.

43. Ching-t'ang, Shih et al. (eds.), Chung-kuo nung-yeh ho-tso-hua yun-tung shih-liao (Historical Materials of China's Agricultural Co-operativization Movement) (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1957), Vol. I, pp. 428–29.Google Scholar

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45. Jo-yü, Lai, “T'ai-hang-ch'u sheng-ch'an yun-tung ti ch'u-pu tsung-chieh” (“A preliminary summary of Taihang District's production drive”), in Shih Ching-t'ang et aL, Chung-kuo nung-yeh, Vol. I, pp. 464–67.Google Scholar