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Chinese History - Republic of China 中華民國 (1911-1949)

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Republic of China
literature, thought and philosophy

period before (Qing)
-- Taiwan ROC
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11" height="17" border="0">The People's Liberation Army (PLA; Renmin Jiefangjun 人民解放军) attained a quite easy victory over the nationalist government, mostly because the PLA was very popular and was staffed with peasant soldiers, disciplined, well-trained and with a clear objective. On October 1st, 1949 chairman Mao Zedong 毛泽东 and his fellowship of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP; Gongchandang 共产党), declared the foundation of the People's Republic of China (Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo 中华人民共和国). The party that has proved to be very effective in the war against the Japanese aggressors and a corrupt government, had to undertake the task to build up a new civil government. The national constitution says, "The People's Republic of China is a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants." In 1953, the expropriatation of landowners was gone through, and the start of the proletarian socialist revolution was marked by agrarian collectivization without former mechanization. Commerce and industry were nationalized until 1956. Already at the begin of the 50es, several campaigns against rightists and counter-revolutionaries were undertaken to intimidate opposition against expropriatation and collectivization. In the international sphere, China could not rely on the United States to be recognized as an existing state. The only way was "to lean on one side" with the Soviet Union, although there have been pending differences between Mao and Stalin who saw China mere as a sattelite state that had to follow the advises of the USSR. Soviet money and Soviet advisors helped China to build up its own industry and modern infrastructure - following the Soviet model, Mao Zedong was convinced that China first had to build up a heavy industry, especially in the northeast. Tensions with the Soviet Union already arose in the case of the separatists Gao Gang 高岗 and Rao Shushi 饶漱石 in 1954. The liberation (or occupation) of Tibet in 1951 met no international interference. The nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) 蒋介石 that hed fled to Taiwan could defend its small island because of massive military aid of the United States (serious clashes between the PRC and Taiwan ocurred in 1958 during the bombardement of the island of Quemoy). The Soviet Union did not want to engage militarily in a brother war inside Korea, when Kim Il-song wanted to reunite the divided country. In Stalin's place, China had to send thousands of "voluntaries" to help North Korea during the war 1950-1953.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign

Mao Zedong was a political idealist. He believed in the goodness of mankind that would be willing to serve freely the aims of a better community and a communist society. Not only workers and peasants should take part in the socialist reconstruction of China, but also the intellectuals. In 1956 he announced the Hundred Flowers Campaign ("Let hundred flowers blow, let hundred schools contest." Bai hua qi kai, bai jia zheng ming. 白花齐开，百家争鸣) to encourage writers and literati to feel free in making proposals to the socialist reconstruction. But instead, six years of totalitarian regime had accumulated many need for criticism. Mao, very disappointed about the writers' unfairness, turned the campaign for intellectual freedom into a campaign against rightists. Many writers like Wang Meng 王蒙 and Ding Ling 丁玲 suffered hard punishment for their honesty in criticism of bureaucracy and policy, mostly by being sent to the countryside for educational labour.

The Great Leap Forward

Under the impression of the rapid development of industry in the Soviet Union and China, both states announced to surpass the USA and Great Britain in production of steel. The Sputnik satellite launch in 1957 caused Mao to say "The eastwind (communism) prevails over the westwind (capitalism)". China should make a Great Leap Forward (dayuejin 大跃进) to leave out some stages in direction to communism. People were organized in vast people's communes (renmin gongshe 人民公社) and had to "walk on two legs": building up a heavy industry had the consequence that even peasants had to produce steel in backyard furnaces. Neglecting to work on the fields, the farmers were not able to fulfill the given targets of production. Millions of people starved to death.
The Great Leap with the Three Red banners to hold high (Sanhongqi 三红旗: the Great Leap, the people's communes, and the general line to the erection of socialism jianli shehuizhuyi de zongluxian 建立社会主义的总路线) was ended abruptly, and Mao had to face harsh criticism even inside the politburo, for example by Chen Yun 陈云. He had to give up his post as state president in favour of Liu Shaoqi, a realistic person that is often called "softliner" of the party. But Mao's main critic during the Lushan conference in late 1958, defense minister Peng Dehuai 彭德怀, was dismissed and should be one of the first victims of the Cultural Revolution. Mao Zedong himself decided to step back into the second row and to lay the daily politics into the hands of the pragmatist bureaucrats around Liu Shaoqi 刘少奇, Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 and Zhou Enlai 周恩来.

The break-off with the Soviet Union

Stalin's death in 1953 caused a succession crisis in the Soviet Union that was finally overcome by Nikita S. Khrushchev. In his speech during the XXth party congress in 1956 he criticized Stalin and Stalinism. Mao Zedong and most persons in the politburo refused Khrushchev's criticism of Stalinism. Especially Khrushchev's détente policy against the USA (his thesis of Peaceful Coexistence and the acceptance of the Yugoslav special way of socialism) marked him in the eyes of the Chinese leadership as a traitor of the communist case, as a friend of the imperialists and even as a reactionary. During his meeting with the American president Dwight D. Eisenhower in Camp David in 1959, Khrushchev showed that the urban communism with material interests, that was practised in the Soviet Union, was very different the puritanian peasant communism in China. In 1960, Deng Xiaoping causes the final break-off with the Soviet Union. The Chinese communists became really independent Moscow. Although the Soviet Union drew back all blueprints and engineers they had sent to China and thereby caused a great economical throwback, Chinese scientists were able to build China's own atomic bomb that was detonated in 1964. While the first bridge over the Yangtse River had been build with the help of Soviet advisors, the Nanjing bridge (Nanjing daqiao 南京大桥) is the proud of Chinese engineers. The main ideological difference between the two communist powers was that the Chinese communists argued that struggle against imperialism and reactionary thinking had by no means ended with the establishing of a socialist state. It had to go on at home and abroad, with internationally united socialist countries helping the less developed countries to get rid of the capitalists and imperialists (even of socialist imperialists!). World peace, in their eyes, could only be achieved by permanent struggle, even against the atomic bomb of the Americans, because the bomb was only "a paper tiger". "Peaceful coexistence" in the eyes of the Chinese communists meant that of block-free countries, not that with the imperialist powers, like Khrushchev interpreted "coexistence."
Already in 1955, China's foreign minister and prime minister Zhou Enlai had tried to unite third world countries during a conference in Bandung/Indonesia. But China's international bad reputation after the break-off with Khrushchev and China's war with India in 1963 made it impossible to unite African and Asian countries against Moscow and Washington.The desaster of the Korean War adventure had shown to China that it would not be advantageous to engage a second time for another country against the US aggressor. China signalized that it would not militarily engage in a Vietnam war: There was a need for a quiet environment to solve China's internal problems...

The Cultural Revolution

After stepping back into the second row to "devote himself to theoretic studies about Marxism", Mao Zedong tried to gain new allies in the southern metropole of Shanghai. He had lost the backing of his party collegues and had to look for new allies in other spheres. One of his allies should be marshal Lin Biao 林彪 who had published the little red book with Mao statings (the Mao Bible; there are books with different content), the second group of allies were the Shanghai revolutionary intellectuals around Mao's wife Jiang Qing 江青 (d.1991) who had created the revolutionary style of opera. The third group of allies would be the youth. Young people should carry on Mao's permanent revolution (buduan geming 不断革命) and make themselves free the "four olds" (sijiu 四旧; old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits), mostly by attacking party members, teachers and honoured persons.During the first half of the sixties, the bureaucratic and realistic party leaders around president Liu Shaoqi tried to build up gradually a light industry, allowing small individual commerce and launching a Socialist Education Campaign (Shehui Jiaoyu Yundong 社会教育运动) to convince people to engage themselves in the erecting of a socialist state. Meanwhile, Mao prepared his return to power. Jiang Qing's collegue Yao Wenyuan 姚文元 started the attack on the party bureaucrats with an article against the historical theatre play "Hai Rui dismissed office" (Hai Rui ba guan 海瑞罢官) by Wu Han 吳晗. Yao stated that it was a critic on Peng Dehuai's dismission after Peng had criticized Mao's Great Leap. The Maoist's attack thus started in the literary sphere where nobody could have expected a connection with the politbureau. Mao's followers formed an alliance to overthrow the "rightist" people. One of the first victims of the new inner party war was Peng Zhen 彭真, mayor of Peking and protector of Wu Han. He was followed by people that were more important in the hierarchy of the party and the military. The young people were encouraged to form "Red Guards" (hongweibing 红卫兵) to overthrow the "reactionaries", "Chinese Khrushchevs" and "rightists" defined by Mao and his supporters.The emergence of the rebelling and ravaging Red Guards imposed an immensurable damage on economy, education and public safety during the second half of the sixties. Schools and universities were closed, workers joined the guards or their enemies, innocent people were killed during witch-huntings. The more chaos, Mao said, the better the new communist order would be. But finally, Mao had to rely on the military to end the chaos by forcing the young people back to school or to work.The revolution devours its children. Mao's designated successor Lin Biao became the target of harsh criticisms and died during his flight to the Soviet Union in 1971. The politbureau was now on dominated by the Gang of Four (Sirenbang 四人帮: Mao's wife Jiang Qing 江青, Yao Wenyuan 姚文元, Wang Hongwen 王洪文, and Zhang Chunqiao 张春桥). The senile Mao was unable to call her back and died in 1976, without designated heir. Immediately after his death, the Gang of Four was arrested and blamed by having caused the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. The new leadership of the party denied a collective guilt for the damage to China and the death of thousands of people, among them many leading cadres like Liu Shaoqi. Prime minister Zhou Enlai and marshal Zhu De who had survived the witch-hunt, died both in 1976 too. It was a thinned out generation that should take over the helm after Mao's death.

The Downfall of the Gang of Four

As long as Chairman Mao Zedong 毛泽东 ruled over China, his favorits were able to control the Politbureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The so-called Gang of Four was a group of people that did not come the ranks of the old veterans of the party. Instead, they were chosen as outsiders, occupying unimportant posts before their rise to power. Mao's wife Jiang Qing, a former actress,once even had promised not to engage in political affairs. But for his ambitious plans, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (Wuchan jieji wenhua da geming 无产阶级文化大革命), Mao Zedong needed some people that did not belong to the old bureaucratic cadres of the Politbureau. Many of these veterans lost their freedom or even their life during the Cultural Revolution (we can say, all important people except Marshal Zhu De 朱德 and Premier Zhou Enlai 周恩来).The year of 1976 proved to be a critical and a decisive one in the history of contemporary China: Three great leaders of the CPC passed away, first Zhou Enlai (January 8), then Zhu De (July 6), and finally Chairman Mao Zedong (September 9). In July, a violent earthquake in Hebei Province expressed - according to ancient Chinese thought - the will of Heaven that the government had either to undertake deepgoing reforms or would be destinated to tumble down. For a second time, Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 was criticized by the leading people, the Gang of Four as "rightist restorer" (youpai xiuzhengzhuyi zhe 右派修正主义着) or a "capitalist roader" (zou xiang zibenzhuyi daolu zhe 走向资本主义道路着). But the Gang could not win widespread popular support. Instead, crowds of people assembled at the Tiananmen Square to express their loyalty with late Premier Zhou Enlai. To the Tomb-Sweeping festival on April 4, two million people are said to have gathered on the square to demonstrate against the Gang of Four. Historians call this episod the Tiananmen Incident (Tiananmen shigu 天安门事故). On the day of Mao's dead, the Gang of Four prepared steps to take over the rule. Only their quick arrest by the Politbureau under the guidance of Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying 叶剑英 and Li Xiannian 李先念,could prevent their grip to power. Hua Guofeng was made Chairman of the CPC Central Committee. The Gang of Four was accused of having imposed serious damages to China in all spheres of life and politics. Their political undertakings were termed as "extreme leftist" (jizuo qingpai 极左倾派), the Cultural Revolution was officially declared as ended.

Short Interlude: Hua Guofeng

Hua Guofeng owed his rise to power to the informal power constellation around Chairman Mao Zedong. After Mao's death September 9, 1976, he was the man in charge who arrested the Gang of Four and liberated China these so-called "leftist" usurpers. Under his guidance, the Politbureau of the Communist Party (CPC) tried to go back to the normal way of life and politics before the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1965/6. Nevertheless, Hua Guofeng blindly followed the rhetorics of the Cultual Revolution, promoted the personal cult of Mao Zedong, and backed the theory of the "Two Whatevers" (Liangge fanshi 两个凡是) to follow any and all political decisions and directives of Mao Zedong. Further, Hua refused to reinstall Deng Xiaoping into his posts. In the sphere of economy, he followed the traditional Soviet-inspired model to promote heavy industries instead of light industries and agriculture, that both would be able to end the shortcomings in the supply of daily needed items. Nevertheless, the Central Committee decided to reinstate Deng Xiaoping in his old posts in the crucial positions of polity and military. A report of governmental work in March 1978 served as a survey of the actual economical and technological situation of China. To overcome the critical situation in these two fields, China would have to open herself for foreign funds and technology. Deng Xiaoping stressed that it would be necessary to stay back the theoretization and pure repetition ("parroting") of Mao Zedong Thought (Mao Zedong sixiang 毛泽东思想) and instead to "seek the truth the facts", (yi shi qiu shi 以是求实) a method that once has been crucial for Mao Zedong himself. This directive paved the way not only for mental emancipation (within the borders of Marxism-Leninism), but also for a new interpretation of Chinese socialism, a better way to "hold high the banner of Mao Zedong Thought". The reappearance of Deng Xiaoping on the political stage was the end of Hua Guofeng, a person who rose to power with the support of the Gang of Four and the senile Mao Zedong. He was removed the office of Chairman of the CPC in 1981 and lost all his guiding posts in 1982.

A new start: Reform and Opening

The crucial point in China's contemporary history was the 3rd plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC (Zhongguo Gongchandang shiyijie san zhong quanhui 中国共产党十一届三中全会) in December 1978. During this session, the guiding principle for the next period was formulated, with practical experience as guideline instead of theoretization. A socialist modernization should be started, with the renunciation of quick economical results in quanta and an adjustment of the imbalance between the major sectors of the economy, but with a focus on agricultural growth in order to rise the poor living standard of China's population ("a good communist must not necessarily be poor"). The Politbureau rehablitated intellectuals (by the Gang of Four called zhishi fenzi 知识分子), scientists and technologicians that during the Cultural Revolution have been called sideliners with the eight classes of conterrevolutionaries (fangeming fenzi 反革命分子), or "Stinking Number Nine" (chou lao jiu 臭老九 ), and that had been sent to the countryside to fulfill bodywork and to obtain political reeducation.

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