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The Troubled Life and After-life of a Guangxi Communist: Some Notes on Li Mingrui and the Communist Movement in Guangxi Province Before 1949

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Graham Hutchings
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Extract

For the most part, the history of Communist Party activity in Guangxi before 1949 is one of modest success in difficult circumstances. Guangxi was the home base of one of the most formidable military factions of the Kuomintang. In association with Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), provincial leaders Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi and Huang Shaoxiong – the “Guangxi Clique” – played a major part in planning and executing the April 1927 Party purge and thereafter, throughout the Republican era, proved bitter opponents of communism.

Type
Research Note
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 104 , December 1985 , pp. 700 - 708
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1985

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References

1. The second occurred as a result of the Japanese occupation, November 1944–July 1945.

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23. In despatches to the Foreign Office the British Consul in Canton relayed details of skirmishes between Li's forces and those of the Guangxi authorities. See for example despatch of 12 February 1931, Public Record Office, P.O. 371 15472/F1375–69; despatch of 26 February 1931, F.O. 371 15444/F3092.

24. According to Gong Chu it was Mao Zedong and Zhu De who regarded Li and the Seventh with suspicion. The Red Army and I, pp. 243, 262Google Scholar. Recent sources attribute hostility towards the Seventh to the late 1931 ascendancy of the “Wang Ming Line” in the Party. Xi, Wu and Qing, Lin “The achievements of the martyr Li Mingrui,” p. 114Google Scholar; Songjian, Huang, Maosheng, Jiang, Li, Ma, Zhiping, Li, “An outstanding Red Army commander,” p. 66.Google Scholar

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26. Ibid. p. 263.

27. Ibid. p. 243.

28. Xi, Wu and Qing, Lin, “The achievements of the martyr Li Mingrui,” p. 114Google Scholar. Ke-tong, Tong and Tsung-jen, Li, The Memoirs of Li Tsung-jen (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1979), p. 283.Google Scholar

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32. Li is an inconsequential figure in Guangxi junqu zhengzhibubian (Guangxi Military Region Political Department) (ed.), Guangxi geming huiyilu (Recollections of the Revolution in Guangxi) (Nanning: Guangxi renmin chubanshe, 1959)Google Scholar and Wenhua, Mo, Huiyi hongqijun (Recollections of the Seventh Red Army) (Nanning: Guangxi renmin chubanshe, 1979)Google Scholar. Mo's work was first published in 1961.

33. Huang Songjian, Jiang Maosheng, Ma Li, Li Zhiping, loc. cit.

34. yanjiuhui, Xinan junfashi (Southwest Warlord Historical Study Group) (ed.), Xinan junfashi yanjiu zongkan (Collected Articles on the History of Warlords in the Southwest), Vol. I (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1982), p. 31Google Scholar. In some respects, of course, this is the equivalent in historical evaluation of contemporary economic policy: “payment by results.”

35. Xi, Wu and Qing, Lin, “The achievements of the martyr Li Mingrui,” p. 115Google Scholar. Songjian, Huang. Maosheng, Jiang, Li, Ma, Zhiping, Li, “An outstanding Red Army commander,” p. 88.Google Scholar