Duncan Hallas

In Chou’s Lifetime – Some Dates

(February 1976)


From International Socialism (1st series), No.86 (wrongly numbered No.85), January 1976, pp.16-17.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.


1905

Sun Yat-sen organises the Alliance Society, forerunner of the Kuomintang, as secret bourgeois revolutionary organisation.

1911−12

First Chinese revolution. The Manchu Emperor overthrown. China becomes a republic. Sun Yat-sen, briefly President, hands over to General Yuan Shih-K’ai. Real power falls to regional warlords backed by the various imperialist powers.

1915

The ‘21 Demands’ by Japan which, if enforced, would have made China a Japanese puppet state, apart from the spheres of influence of Britain, France, USA and Russia.

1919

The ‘May 4’ movement. Explosion of nationalist feeling in Pekin led by students, directed against Japan and Western imperialist powers.

1920

Sun Yat-sen sets up Kuomintang ‘government’ in Canton, under protection of the warlord Ch’en Ch’iung-ming, as rival to near-powerless Pekin ‘government’. Warlords dominate China.

1921

Chinese Communist Party founded in Shanghai.

1922−23

Ch’en Ch’iung-ming overthrows KMT government. Sun Yat-sen enters agreement with Russian Soviet government. CCP members join KMT. Canton recaptured.

1924

Russian instructors establish Whampoa Military Academy for KMT. Russian arms reach Canton. Sun Yat-sen, in his testament, speaks of China and Russia as ‘allies in the great fight for the emancipation of the oppressed and the whole world’.

1925−27

Second Chinese revolution. Massive insurrectionary strike movements in coastal cities and huge peasant risings enable KMT-CCP combination to launch Northern Expedition against Pekin and the warlords. Seventh Plenum of executive of Communist International (1926), at Stalin’s insistance, orders CCPto check and hold back worker and peasant movements in interests of ‘unity’ with KMT. After capture of Shanghai (1927) Chiang Kai-shek, KMT commander and Sun Yat-sen’s successor, turns his forces on his CCP allies and massacres their supporters. CCP, on Stalin’s orders, launches unprepared rising in Canton (1927) which is drowned in blood.

1928

Chiang Kai-shek captures Pekin and begins a series of operations, in collaboration with surviving warlords, against peasant guerrillas. First peasant ‘red armies’ created.

1929-34

CCP, now purely a peasant-military organisation, trying to ‘liberate’ the cities from the countryside. Working class base disappears. Successive Moscow-appointed leaders (Li Li-san, Wang Ming) insist on offensive military actions. CCP nearly destroyed in five KMT ‘encirclement campaigns’.

1931

Japan seizes Manchuria.

1934

‘Chinese Soviet Republic’ (proclaimed 1931) in South China overrun by KMT troops. The ‘Long March’ to the far North-West begins. Mao Tse-tung gains control of CCP, i.e. of the ‘red army’.

1935

Long March reaches Shensi and CCP calls for ‘Peoples’ United Front’ with KMT against Japan.

1937

Japan seizes Chinese capital (Nanking).

1937

KMT-CCP agreement (often violated by KMT in practise) for cooperation against Japanese armies.

1939

Mao ‘abolishes’ Chinese Soviet Republic and proclaims ‘Shansi-Chahar-Hopeh Border Region Government’ in agreement with Chiang Kai-shek.

1939−44

Japanese forces gain control of large part of China. KMT confined largely to interior of South-West.

1945

Japanese surrender. Russians occupy Manchuria. KMT forces, with US support, re-occupy the cities all over China. USSR signs Treaty of Friendship and Alliance with KMT.

1946−47

KMT loses ground to CCP in North. Alternate truces and clashes.

1948−49

Third Chinese revolution. Pekin falls to CCP (January 1949), central China overrun. Chiang Kai-shek flees to Taiwan (December 1949).

1950−53

Korean War. Chinese drawn in defensively as US forces move to Yalu river (Chinese border). ‘3 anti’s’ and ‘5 anti’s’ campaigns.

1953

First Five Year Plan, Russian style, proclaimed.

1956

‘The Hundred Flowers’ campaign. ‘Let a hundred flowers blossom, let rival schools of thought contend’. Soon killed by turn to sharp repression. Mao supports Russian suppression of Hungarian revolution.

1958

‘The Great Leap Forward’ launched after real but slow economic growth under five year plan. Slogan: Twenty Years in a Day’. People’s Communes set up. ‘Backyard’ steel works etc. in attempt to catch up Russia and West.

1960

Final collapse of the ‘Great Leap’. Return to slow growth and concessions to peasants. Break with USSR and withdrawal of Russian technicians. Mao temporarily deprived of power.

1966−68

‘The great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’. Mao recovers power. Liu Shao-ch’i – Mao’s number two – and Teng Hsiao-ping – today effective ruler of China – amongst the many CCP leaders denounced as ‘top party persons taking the capitalist road’. Marshall Lin Piao and Madame Mao dominant. ‘Red guards’, encouraged from the top, on rampage against ‘bureaucracy’. The ‘heritage of the past’ to be ‘extirpated’ by act of will. Led to near collapse of party-state bureaucracy and imposition of military rule over most of China.

1971

Lin Piao and supporters ‘discovered’ to be traitors. Sharp turn to right in economic policy – slow growth and concessions to peasantry. Foreign policy increasingly anti-Russian. Teng Hsiao-ping ‘rehabilitated’.

1972−76

Rapprochment with USA. Increasingly conservative internal course. Mao fades into background. Teng Hsiao-ping, under cover of Chou, gains power.

 


Last updated on 31.12.2007