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List of supernatural beings in Chinese folklore - Wikipedia

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The following is a list of supernatural beings in Chinese folklore and fiction originating from traditional folk culture and contemporary literature such as Pu Songling's Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio . This list contains only common supernatural beings who are inherently "evil" in nature, such as ghosts and demons, and beings who are lesser than deities.

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Crash Course video

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USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Crash Course World History #39

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Crash Course video

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Communists, Nationalists, and China's Revolutions: Crash Course World History #37

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how and why the Chinese wanted change

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The Chinese Revolution and Chinese Communism

( Note: The new Pinyin (P) transliteration of Chinese names into English is used for most key leaders and place names; in cases where the "P" system has not become established usage in the West, the old Wade-Giles (W-G) transliteration is either used, or given in brackets).

The People's Republic of China (PRC) was established on October 1, 1949. However, an assessment of Chinese communism cannot begin there. It must begin about 30 years earlier, because the preceding years shaped the PRC as a communist state.

To understand the rise of communism in China, we must see it within the context of Chinese history.

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* I would like to thank Professor Dan Bays for his help in writing the original version of this chapter, and Professor Terry Weidner for helping me revise it in fall 1996.

Most historians attribute the decline of China at least in part to the inability of its rulers to understand and adapt modern technology. While this is true, another key factor was the quadrupling of the population under the Qing, which put enormous pressure on government resources. In fact, by the early 20th century, Japan was the only Asian country to achieve achieve modernisation and cope with a rapid population increase. We should note, however, that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were some outstanding Chinese thinkers who wanted to modernize China. Some hoped for a constitutional framework, i.e., parliamentary monarchy, while others worked for a democratic republic. Most wanted the abolition of the feudal-Confucian system; all wanted the abolition of foreign privilege and the unification of their vast country.

The man who came to lead the strongest movement for reform and unity was Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925). Sun was born near Canton; he was raised by his elder brother in Hawaii and graduated as a medical doctor in Hongkong in 1892. Two years later, however, he began to devote himself to political work for the overthrow of the Qing dynasty His goal was to create a strong, unified, modern, Chinese republic. Between 1905 and 1912, Sun developed a political movement called the Revolutionary Alliance, which was funded by donations from Chinese businessmen living outside of China.

Sun's main backer was Charlie Soong (d. 1927). He came to the United States around 1880, converted to Christianity, and found generous Americans to pay for his education in the U.S. Later, he became a successful businessman in Shanghai. He began by printing and selling bibles, but made his fortune on noodle factories. We should note that Soong's children went on to play important political roles. His two daughters received an American education, after which Ch'ingling married Sun Yat-sen, while May'ling married Chiang Kai-shek. Soong's son, Teseven (T.V.) studied at Harvard and Columbia Universities and became Chiang's Finance Minister.

In 1911, a military revolt led to revolution and the fall of the Qing dynasty. Although the revolution aroused great hope for democracy, the Republic established in 1912 proved a miserable failure. The Guomindang (Kuomintang, KMT) or Nationalist Party developed by Sun Yat-sen after the revolution on the base of the old Revolutionary Alliance, was still very weak, and the country was in the grip of war lords, who created their own satrapies and had their own armies. Meanwhile, the central government came under the rule of Gen. Yuan Shikai, who died in June 1916 before he could consolidate his power as Emperor. He was succeeded by Li Yuanghong, who had been Vice-President. There followed an insurrection in spring 1917, led by Gen. Zhang Xun, who tried to restore the Qing dynasty in the person of its last male heir, the boy emperor Puyi (1906-1967), but the insurrection collapsed. In August 1918, a new Chinese parliament elected Hsu Shih-ch'ang (W-G) as President, and he retained this post until 1922. However, the central government was weak and faced a rival government in Guangzhou (Canton).

In the meanwhile, China had lined up with the entente powers and Japan against Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I. Although the Chinese authorities did not send soldiers, they did send some 100,000 laborers who were used by the allied armies in France and Belgium, while others worked for the Allies in Mesopotamia and Africa. However, in January 1917, Japan obtained special rights in the former Chinese provinces of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, extending them in 1918. Finally, the Versailles Treaty of June 28, 1919 (peace treaty with Germany worked out by the victor powers) did not return the former German concession at Shantung to China, but gave it to Japan.This caused strong anti-Japanese and anti-western feelings in China.

In the course of the 19th century, foreign powers had firmly established their separate enclaves (concessions) in the major coastal cities. They had extensive economic-political privileges, including extra-territorial status, the best example of which was the foreign enclave in the great port city of Shanghai. These concessions were won by force and spelled out in the unequal treaties.

Along with the power of local warlords, these foreign privileges were a major obstacle to any Chinese political movement aiming to unify the country.

The social structure of China was obsolete. In particular, the gentry class (landlords who sometimes were also local officials) was an obstacle to modernization. They dominated the peasants, who made up the vast majority of the population. Almost all of them lived in abject poverty, dying like flies in the recurrent famines. At the same time, most of the merchants in the coastal cities lacked capital and vision, while those who tried to develop more modern methods were checked by foreign privilege. The urban workers - about 2 million out of an estimated population of some 300 million in 1918 - were mostly unskilled and also lived in dire poverty. Thus, social reform was a third priority, coming behind national unity and independence, because reformers saw them as the basic prerequisites for the modernization of China.

Many members of China's small educated class were deeply worried by the situation; they were desperate for change and looked for answers. The constitutional monarchists were led by Kang Youwei (1858-1927), who hoped that the Qing emperor Guangxu would achieve this aim. However, the Emperor died in 1908 and the reins of government were taken over by the old dowager empress Cixi, who acted as regent for the boy-emperor, Puyi. Another reformist thinker was Liang Qichao, a disciple of Kang. Liang rejected violent revolution, but worked for an informed citizenry and political discipline. Like Kang, he also argued for the liberation of women and their participation in political life. Marxism began to gain adherents in China with the translation of Marx's Communist Manifesto in 1906, but some thinkers were more attracted to anarchism. Finally, there was Sun Yat-sen and his Revolutionary Alliance (see above).

The yearning of educated Chinese for a reformed, united, China, free of foreign privilege, was clearly expressed in the May 4th Movement of 1919. This student-led movement protested against the unfair treatment of China in the peace treaties following World War I, whereby Japan took over the German concession in Shantung and expanded its control over Manchuria. The May 4th Movement also attacked the privileges of the foreign powers, and made radical and democratic demands for changing the social and political system. The students, encouraged by radically inclined professors, especially at Beijing University (Beida), were soon joined by businessmen and workers. Thus, there was considerable potential for mobilizing a national movement.

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Many Chinese intellectuals were attracted by Marxism. Those active in the in May 4th Movement, as well as others outside it, saw socialism as a means of preventing the conflicts caused by capitalism - particularly because at a time of great ambivalence toward the West, Marxism could be seen as as a western "ism" that could be used against the West. Finally, many

Chinese socialists were attracted to anarchism.

A member of Li's Marxist study group, Qu Qiubai, was one of the most successful organizers of China's peasants. He even visited Moscow that same year - 1920 - and wrote an enthusiastic report in the Beijing Morning News. He wrote that he was happy he had seen "the lighthouse of the mind's sea." Two years later, he was still in Moscow and became a member of the communist party.

There was little reliable information about the Bolshevik revolution in China before 1920. We know that study groups were organized to study Marxist thought but it was not until spring 1920, that a Comintern agent, Grigorii Voytinskii, arrived in China with information and political writings. Many of these were translated into Chinese at this time. It was also Voytinskii who worked successfully to transform the existing Marxist study groups into communist groups and then into the Communist Party of China. Here we should note that Voytinskii was assisted in this organizational work by the Soviet government's proclamation that it would give up the old Russian privileges in China. In particular, the Soviet government promised to return the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER, a branch of the Trans-Siberian railway) to China. Though this promise was not implemented, it made Chinese authorities more friendly to Moscow and allowed some travel between China and Soviet Russia.

Thus, it was in the period between spring and winter 1920, and with the active help of Voytinskii, that the Chinese Communist Party began to take shape. It was based on the Marxist study groups previously organized in Beijing and Shanghai. The party was secretly constituted in that city in July 1921, formalizing the organization formed the previous year. The General Secretary was Chen Duxiu, while Zhang Guotao was made head of the organization section, and Li Dazhao was head of propaganda. Communist nuclei around the country were transformed into party branches with local secretaries in Hunan (Mao Zedong), Guangzhou, Wuhan, Beijing, and Jinan. Shanghai had its own branch. The party program closely followed the Bolshevik program in Soviet Russia. However, some radical Chinese intellectuals rejected the Bolshevik model; they were either supporters of democratic socialism, or joined the Guomindang (Kuomingtang). Voytinskii was succeeded by Maring (alias of Hendricus Sneevliet), who continued to guide the fledgling communist movement in China.

Here it is appropriate to give a brief biographical sketch of Mao Zedong. He was born into a prosperous farming family in Hunan Province in 1893. He rebelled against his father and refused to accept an arranged marriage. He read much on his own and majored in ethics at the First Normal School (Teachers' College) in Changsha. He resented the superior airs of Chinese scholars, and it is then that he probably acquired the anti-intellectual attitudes, strengthened later at Beijing University, that he manifested as a leader. In his essay on physical education, published in the progressive journal, New Youth, in April 1917, he attacked the "passive" Confucian thinking and way of life; he called for physical education to strengthen the body, for violence, and anger. Soon, he was advocating the equal rights of women, and attacking the practice of arranged marriages. Above all, he expressed a determination to fight for his beliefs. He was to implement all these early thoughts when he became the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and then of China. (1)

After Voytinskii and Maring, the foremost agent of the Comintern in China was Michael Borodin (real name: Gruzenberg), whom Sun Yat-Sen invited to China in 1923. He acted as Comintern adviser to the Central Committee of the KMT until 1927. (He was later a victim of the Stalin purges). Borodin acted as Comintern agent to the KMT Central Committee until 1927. He helped Sun reorganize the KMT along Bolshevik lines, i.e., to give it a Bolshevik party structure. At the same time, Soviet military advisers led by General Vasily K. Blyukher, (known in China as Galen), helped establish a military force under KMT control. (Blyukher was also to be a victim of the Stalin purges). The establishment of this military force saw the rise of Chiang Kai-shek (P: Chieh-shih, 1887-1975). After studying in Moscow, he began his career as the Commander of the Whampoa Military Academy in May 1924, with the communist Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai) as his second in command.

We should note that Lenin, and later Stalin, ordered the CCP to join the KMT and many leading communists did so, including Mao and Zhou Enlai. The goal was to strengthen and, at the same time, infiltrate the KMT. Nevertheless, though Soviet advisers gave the KMT ideology an anti-imperialist slant, the bulk of the movement remained distinctly non-communist. Ironically, the CCP's major contribution to the KMT was to organize worker support for it in the coastal cities. The peak of CCP-KMT cooperation came in the years of the Nationalist Revolution, in 1925-27. This was crowned by the great campaign launched against the warlords of central China by Chiang Kai-shek in 1926. It was known as the Northern Expedition because he started from the south.. Chiang won a series of impressive victories and unified about half of the country by 1927.

Chiang's triumph signalled the end of cooperation between the KMT and the CCP. The generally accepted view is that the split was precipitated by CCP radicalism. This targeted not only foreign privileges and symbols, but also rich Chinese. Wealthy Shangai industrialists were alarmed and offered to bankroll Chiang if he freed himself from dependence on Moscow. This suited Chiang and in March 1925 he arrested the political commissars in his army and placed the Soviet advisers under house arrest. In April 1927, when the Northern Expedition forces approached Shanghai, the communist-led labor unions rose to take the city from the inside. When Chiang entered the city, he ordered a massacre of the communists. This became known as the "Shanghai massacre" or more commonly "the White Terror." Also in April 1927, KMT leaders met in Nanjing (Nanking), proclaimed the establishment of a National Government and outlawed the CCP.

Stalin did not want to admit the defeat of his China policy, so he ordered the CCP to continue cooperation with the KMT. It is not clear whether he sanctioned an unofficial test of strength, or whether the CCP -- perhaps encouraged by Borodin -- disobeyed his orders. In any case, it carried out an uprising in the city of Nanchang in August 1927. Although the communists held the city for only a few days, the rising is notable for the participation of future leaders of the Chinese Red Army. The communist rising in Guangzhou in December 1927 also failed. We should note that Leon Trotsky openly criticized Stalin for the failure of his policy in China. This criticism, together with his opposition to Stalin in the debate on industrialization (1926-27), led to his internal exile to Alma Ata, Kazkhastan, in 1928, and then his exile from Russia in 1929.

There was, in fact, no way that the CCP could have seized control of the KMT in the 1920s or 1930s, because at that time the KMT embodied the dominant drive toward unification and symbolized Chinese national goals. But we can at least wonder whether a different Soviet policy toward the CCP might not have averted its annihilation. For example, it is intriguing to speculate what would have happened if Moscow had ordered the CCP to split off from the KMT in March 1926, and/or supported Mao's later policy of concentrating the party's efforts on the peasants - as the CCP frantically requested (?) However, such a policy seems most unlikely for while Trotsky opposed CCP cooperation with the KMT, neither he nor Stalin ever sanctioned Mao's strategy to build Chinese communism with the support of the teeming millions of Chinese peasants.

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However, the peasants soon found that nothing changed much except for the national flag. Warlords loosely allied with Chiang still ruled large parts of China and there was no land reform. Many intellectuals became alienated from Chiang by the end of this period because he did not introduce democratic reforms. On the contrary, he seemed to favor his own dictatorship, and to see fascism as a desirable model of government.

At this time the communist movement was rebuilt by Mao and Zhu De (Chu Teh) -- one of the leaders of the Nanchang rising -- in the southern part of the province of Jiangxi. Meanwhile, the official party leaders, who remained loyal to Moscow, went into hiding in Shanghai, where they stayed until 1930.

It was during this period that Mao redirected Chinese communism from the workers to the peasants who, after all, made up the vast majority of the population. Thus Mao changed the communist goal in China from a workers' revolution to a peasant revolution, which he saw as the first step toward a socialist revolution.

Furthermore, in cooperation with Zhu De, Mao evolved the strategy of operating from a stable base area, and of harassing government troops by guerrilla tactics. These tactics were not new; they were rooted in traditional Chinese military strategy which Mao knew very well from hisr reading. They were to play a central role in the ultimate victory of Mao's forces over Chiang.

Mao emerged as the leading spokesman for these policies. They were embodied in the Chinese Soviet Republic, known also as the Jiangxi Soviet, which existed from 1931-34. This was the model which mainstream Chinese communism was to follow from then on. These developments took place independently of Moscow. However, the CCP went on to impose a very radical regime when other Chinese communists, called "Bolsheviks," returned to Jiangxi from Moscow and replaced Mao sometime around 1933. This regime had disastrous results. Mao resumed power at the beginning of the "Long March" at the Cun Yi conference in 1934. The Jiangxi Soviet came to an end in late 1934-35, when KMT military pressure became too great. At that time, the communists had to break out and move elsewhere to survive. This resulted in the Long March, an event of enormous significance in the history of Chinese communism. (2)

Also, the Long March provided a heroic myth for Chinese communists in the future, much as Valley Forge had done for Americans. It deepened the communists' sense of destiny. Finally, it provided the leaders of future communist China. Of the few hundred top PRC leaders that still lived in the 1980s and those still alive early 1990s, some 90% were/are veterans of that odyssey. (3)

In September 1936, the Japanese government presented secret demands to the government of Chiang Kai-Shek. Disguised as proposals for a common war against the communists, their acceptance would have meant Japanese domination over China.

On July 7, 1937, an accidental fire fight between Chinese and Japanese troops at Lukouchiao, near Beijing, gave Tokyo the long desired pretext for attacking China. Japanese armies seized Beijing and Tientsin; then they proceeded to occupy most of eastern China.Many historians suspect that this fight was precipitated by the Japanese. Whatever the case might be, the Japanese invasion of China had a dual effect on the country: (a) it swept northeast China clear of the old authorities, whom the KMT had never been able to control effectively anyway; and (b) it bogged down the Japanese in a large area of China which they could not control either. This situation provided the ideal opportunity for guerrilla war, or as the communists called it -- "The People's War of Resistance."

The communist guerrillas, who were led by "The 8th Route Army", were able to establish links and contacts throughout northern China. These forces did so by harassing the Japanese, while at the same time fighting hard - not always successfully - to protect the peasants in the villages.

But this was only part of the CCP achievement. The other was its use of wartime resistance to effect a permanent penetration of the villages. Here the communists generally treated the peasants well by paying for what they needed, and also implemented popular social-economic policies. Of these, the most important were rent and interest controls and an end to abuses in tax collection, both very popular with the peasants. These measures were accompanied by education, i.e., teaching the peasants to read and write a basic form of Chinese. These policies, which followed precedents set in Jiangxi, gave the CCP a mass base, which no Chinese government had ever had, including the KMT. (Some new studies show, however, that the CCP was not always as good as this in treating the peasants).

By the end of the war, the results were dramatic. The CCP controlled 19 base areas with a population of about 100 million and had an army of about half a million. The Party itself had about 1 million members. Thus, the CCP was all set for a test of strength with the KMT. From hindsight, the factors outlined above were bound to result in a communist victory. At the time, however, the KMT had such superiority in troops and weapons that the CCP doubted it could win.

We should also note some key developments within the CCP during this period. It evolved a self-image stressing egalitarianism, self-sufficiency, and dedication. At the same time, Mao implemented the process of rectification or systematic thought control, i.e., the use of mass pressure to make everyone accept the party line. This presaged Mao's mass campaigns to promote "correct thinking," after the CCP came to power. Furthermore, the party, i.e., Mao, exercised control over literature and the arts on the premise that they "must serve the revolution"; this followed established Soviet practice and, like thought control, led to the repression of dissent.

Although the above-mentioned thought and cultural control were related to Soviet models, it is a mistake to assume that the Yenan CCP was under the control of Moscow. In fact, from June 22 1941, Stalin was too busy fighting the Germans to bother with Mao and he continued to recognize Chiang's government in Chungking as the government of China. Thus the Yenan model was Mao's work, reflecting his anti-intellectual and dictatorial character. He was to apply these policies on a massive scale after coming to power.

In conclusion, we should note that by the end of the war in 1945, Chinese communism under Mao's leadership had both a significant social-revolutionary content and had become the embodiment of Chinese nationalism. The CCP had accomplished all this on its own by developing a distinctly Chinese revolutionary strategy which drew on Chinese traditions and tapped directly into the two great goals of modern Chinese reformers, communist and non-communist alike, i.e., (a) effective national unity, and (b) real independence, or freedom from foreign domination. What is more, the CCP led the way to the third goal, which most Chinese reformers agreed should follow the first two: social-economic reform, especially the abolition of the feudal system in the countryside.

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Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan on August 8th and sent its troops into Manchuria, occupying it without encountering much resistance. The Soviets allowed Chinese communist troops to take over the region as well as the weapons of the defeated Japanese. At the same time, however, they looted the industrial equipment and sent it to Russia, just as they did in their occupation zone in Germany and in the former German territories allocated to Poland.

But Stalin did not want a confrontation with the U.S. so he signed a Treaty of Friendship and Alliance with Chiang on August 14, 1945. In accordance with this treaty, Chiang ceded Port Arthur and control of Dalian (in Russian, Dairen), in southern Manchuria to Russia, thus implementing the promises Roosevelt had made to Stalin at Yalta. The Russians agreed to give up some key cities to the KMT, but this did not happen until they pulled out in early May 1946.In the meanwhile, Gen. Marshall managed to arrange a truce between the KMT and the communists, which was signed in Chungking on January 16, 1946. While neither side intended to observe it for long, the communists seemed more willing to abide by it than Chiang.

Chiang fought the communists in his old way, i.e., by garrisoning fortified places. However, they were soon surrounded by Mao's troops. Masses of KMT peasant soldiers deserted to the PLA, perceiving they had nothing to lose and everything to gain. The PLA captured their equipment and soon overpowered the KMT. Even the mainstay of the KMT, the merchants and civil servants, had become alienated from Chiang because of the terrible inflation that followed the end of the war with Japan. They looked all the more hopefully to Mao, because he carefully avoided proclaiming any radical measures, such as the abolition of private property.

Newly declassified Russian documents show that in January 1949, after Chiang asked for great power mediation, Stalin advised Mao to accept - but Mao refused. It is clear from the Russian record that Stalin was anxious to avoid a clash between the United States and Mao in China, which might invovle the USSR. Mao, however, pursued his own policy. (5)

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Stalin's careful policy was probably dictated by two factors: (a) he wanted to consolidate the growing Soviet hold on Eastern Europe.Therefore, he had to avoid a confrontation with the United States until he felt he had a good chance of consolidating his gains. As we know, he risked a confrontation over Berlin in 1948-49 and lost his bid for Germany. He was not about to seek another confrontation over China, particularly since (b) the U.S. had the monopoly over the atomic bomb until the Soviets successfully exploded theirs in 1949. But, even then, they had to wait a few years to produce a stockpile and to develop a delivery system, while the U.S. had both the bombs and the long-range planes to deliver them. (We should note, however, that U.S. policy was to use these bombs only in self-defense and possibly in defense of Western Europe).

Finally, Stalin probably did not trust Mao, who had developed his own brand of communism and his own power base without Soviet input and control. As with Tito in Yugoslavia, with whom he had split in 1948, this presaged tensions and an eventual split between the two communist regimes. But that was to happen many years later. Furthermore, he probably did not want a strong, united, China on the Russian border in Asia. China had lost much territory there to Imperial Russia and the Chinese communists kept these losses very much in mind.

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Arif Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism, New York and Oxford, 1989.

Maurice Meisner, Mao's China and After. A History of the People's Republic, revised and expanded edition, New York and London, 1986.

Roger Pelissier ed., The Awakening of China, 1793-1949, New York, 1967 (excellent selection of excerpts from memoirs and documents illustrating key events in Chinese history for this period).

Witold Rodzinski, The People's Republic of China. A Concise Political History, New York, 1988 (incisive survey and interesting insights by a former Polish diplomat and Sinologist who served in China in the 1950s and 1960s).

Jonathan D. Spence, The Gate of Heavenly Peace. The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895-1980, New York, 1981, London, 1982 (a beautifully written account by a well-known Western historian of China, showing the continuity of Chinese intellectuals' struggle for modernization and their fate under various regimes, chaps. 1 through 11 deal with the period 1895-1950).

Jonathan D. Spence, In Search for Modern China, New York and London, 1990 (a brilliant survey of Chinese history from 1644 through June 1989; illustrated, with bibliographies for each chapter).

Percy Chen, China Called Me. My Life Inside the Chinese Revolution, Boston, 1979 (memoirs of a Chinese nationalist and socialist, who played an active part in the years 1925-49).

Chow Tse-tung, The May Fourth Movement. Intellectual Revolution in Modern China, Harvard University Press, 1960; Stanford, California, 1967.

Charles Fitzgerald, The Birth of Communist China, Baltimore, 1964.

Jerome B. Grieder, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance. Liberalism in the Chinese Revolution, 1911-1937, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971 (about a Chinese liberal, disciple of John Dewey, and his efforts to bring liberalism to China).

Same , Chinese Intellectuals and the State, New York, 1983.

Jacques Guillermaz, The History of the Chinese Communist Party, 1921-1949, New York, 1972 (the author was a French diplomat who served in China in the 1930s and 1940s).

J. P. Harrison, The Long March to Power, 1921-1972, New York, 1972.

Same, The Politics of Chinese Communism: Kiangsi under the Soviets, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1973.

Li-Yu-ning, The Introduction of Socialism to China, New York, 1971.

Robert B. Marks, Rural Revolution in South China, Madison, Wisconsin, 1984.

Maurice Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism, Cambridge, Mass.s, 1967 (note new intepretation by Dirlik).

William Morwood, Duel for the Middle Kingdom. The Struggle Between Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Tse Tung for Control of China, New York, 1980 (written by a former U.S.intelligence officer, who was present at the meeting between Chiang kai-Shek and Mao tse-Tung at Chungking, 1945).

Pu Yi, From Emperor to Citizen. The Autobiography of Asin-Gioro Pu Yi, translated with new general and chapter introductions by W. J. F. Jenner, New York and Oxford, 1987 (lst published, Peking, 1964, 1965; basis for film about Pu Yi)..

Mary B. Rankin, Early Chinese Revolutionaries, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971.

Edward E. Rice, Mao's Way, Berkeley, California, 1972, 1974, (chaps. 1-7).

Harrison Salisbury, The Long March. The Untold Story, New York, 1985 (how the author retraced the route in 1984, and what he learned from survivors).

Robert Scalapino, "The Evolution of a Young Revolutionary: Mao Zedong in 1919-1920," Journal of Asian Studies, 42, November 1982, pp. 29-61.

Lynda Schaffer, Mao and the Workers: The Hunan Labor Movement, 1920-1923, Armonk, New York, A. E. Sharpe, 1982.

Benjamin I. Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1951 (but see Dirlik).

Mark Selden, The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971.

Edgar Snow, Red Star over China, (lst published 1938, revised and enlarged ed., New York, 1968).

Edgar Snow, The Long Revolution, New York, 1971, 1972.

Helen Foster Snow, Inside Red China, New York, 1939, 1979. (N.B. Edgar and Helen F. Snow were U.S. journalists who observed Mao and the CCP at close quarters; they generally expressed uncritical admiration).

Richard C. Thornton, China. The Struggle for Power, 1917-1972, Bloomington, Indiana, 1973 (Parts I and II).

John F. Melby, The Mandate of Heaven: Record of a Civil War. China, 1945-49, Toronto, 1968 (notes by an officer of the U.S. Embassy in Chungking during and after Gen. Marshall's mission of mediation between Chiang and Mao).

Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-49, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978.

Stanley D. Bachrack, The Committee of One Million. "China Lobby" Politics, 1953-1971, New York, 1976, "Part I: Background."

Dorothy Borg and Waldo Heinrichs, eds., Uncertain Years. Chinese-American Relations, 1947-1950, New York, 1980.

Russell D. Buhite, Patrick J.Hurley and American Foreign Policy, Ithaca, New York, 1973.

John King Fairbank, The United States and China, 4th edition, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1979, chaps. 8-13 ( until his death, he was the foremost U.S. historian of China).

John King Fairbank, Chinabound. A Fifty-Year Memoir, New York, 1982 (fascinating memoirs on his study of China, including visits in the 1930s and during World War II; his development of China studies in the United States, the McCarthy Era and after).

Charles F. Romanus and Riley Sunderland, eds., United States Army in World War II: China-Burma-India Theater, vol. I, Stillwell's Mission to China, Washington, D.C., Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1953.

Kenneth E. Shewmaker, Americans and Chinese Communists, 1927-1945. A Persuading Encounter, Ithaca, New York, 1971.

Barbara W. Tuchman, Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945, New York, 1972.

Same, Leon Trotsky on China, Monad Press, 1976.

Chiang Kai-shek, Soviet Russia and China: A Summing Up at Seventy, New York, 1975.

Stephen Levine, "Soviet-American Rivalry in Manchuria and the Cold War," in Hsueh Chun-tu, ed., Dimensions of China's Foreign Relations, New York, 1977.

Robert North, Moscow and the Chinese Communists, Stanford, California, 1967.

J. Rearden-Anderson, Yenan and the Great Powers: The Origins of Communist China's Foreign Policy, 1944-46, New York, 1980.

R. C. Thornton, The Comintern and the Chinese Communists, 1928-31, Seattle, Washington, 1969.

R. K. I. Quested, Sino-Russian Relations. A Short History, London, Sydney,and Boston, 1984 (a brief survey from 1200 to 1978).

Soviet Accounts in English.

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The Chinese Revolution and Chinese Communism ( Note: The new Pinyin (P) transliteration of Chinese names into English is used for most key leaders and place names; in cases where the "P" system has not become established usage in the West, the old Wade-Giles (W-G) transliteration is either used, or given in brackets).

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bringing the cold war to china

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The Cold War for Kids: Chinese Civil War

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Kids learn about the history of the Chinese Civil War. Fight between the communists led by Mao Zedong and the nationalists.

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feature things video

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hard cover

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notes

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(aka timeline)

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On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which broke out immediately following World War II and had been preceded by on and off conflict between the two sides since the 1920's. The creation of the PRC also completed the long process of governmental upheaval in China begun by the Chinese Revolution of 1911. The "fall" of mainland China to communism in 1949 led the United States to suspend diplomatic ties with the PRC for decades.

The Chinese Communist Party, founded in 1921 in Shanghai, originally existed as a study group working within the confines of the First United Front with the Nationalist Party. Chinese Communists joined with the Nationalist Army in the Northern Expedition of 1926-27 to rid the nation of the warlords that prevented the formation of a strong central government. This collaboration lasted until the "White Terror" of 1927, when the Nationalists turned on the Communists, killing them or purging them from the party.

After the Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, the Government of the Republic of China (ROC) faced the triple threat of Japanese invasion, Communist uprising, and warlord insurrections. Frustrated by the focus of the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek on internal threats instead of the Japanese assault, a group of generals abducted Chiang in 1937 and forced him to reconsider cooperation with the Communist army. As with the first effort at cooperation between the Nationalist government and the CCP, this Second United Front was short-lived. The Nationalists expended needed resources on containing the Communists, rather than focusing entirely on Japan, while the Communists worked to strengthen their influence in rural society.

During World War II, popular support for the Communists increased. U.S. officials in China reported a dictatorial suppression of dissent in Nationalist-controlled areas. These undemocratic polices combined with wartime corruption made the Republic of China Government vulnerable to the Communist threat. The CCP, for its part, experienced success in its early efforts at land reform and was lauded by peasants for its unflagging efforts to fight against the Japanese invaders.

Japanese surrender set the stage for the resurgence of civil war in China. Though only nominally democratic, the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek continued to receive U.S. support both as its former war ally and as the sole option for preventing Communist control of China. U.S. forces flew tens of thousands of Nationalist Chinese troops into Japanese-controlled territory and allowed them to accept the Japanese surrender. The Soviet Union, meanwhile, occupied Manchuria and only pulled out when Chinese Communist forces were in place to claim that territory.

In 1945, the leaders of the Nationalist and Communist parties, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, met for a series of talks on the formation of a post-war government. Both agreed on the importance of democracy, a unified military, and equality for all Chinese political parties. The truce was tenuous, however, and, in spite of repeated efforts by U.S. General George Marshall to broker an agreement, by 1946 the two sides were fighting an all-out civil war. Years of mistrust between the two sides thwarted efforts to form a coalition government.

As the civil war gained strength from 1947 to 1949, eventual Communist victory seemed more and more likely. Although the Communists did not hold any major cities after World War II, they had strong grassroots support, superior military organization and morale, and large stocks of weapons seized from Japanese supplies in Manchuria. Years of corruption and mismanagement had eroded popular support for the Nationalist Government. Early in 1947, the ROC Government was already looking to the island province of Taiwan, off the coast of Fujian Province, as a potential point of retreat. Although officials in the Truman Administration were not convinced of the strategic importance to the United States of maintaining relations with Nationalist China, no one in the U.S. Government wanted to be charged with facilitating the "loss" of China to communism. Military and financial aid to the floundering Nationalists continued, though not at the level that Chiang Kai-shek would have liked. In October of 1949, after a string of military victories, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the PRC; Chiang and his forces fled to Taiwan to regroup and plan for their efforts to retake the mainland.

The ability of the PRC and the United States to find common ground in the wake of the establishment of the new Chinese state was hampered by both domestic politics and global tensions. In August of 1949, the Truman administration published the "China White Paper," which explained past U.S. policy toward China based upon the principle that only Chinese forces could determine the outcome of their civil war. Unfortunately for Truman, this step failed to protect his administration from charges of having "lost" China. The unfinished nature of the revolution, leaving a broken and exiled but still vocal Nationalist Government and Army on Taiwan, only heightened the sense among U.S. anti-communists that the outcome of the struggle could be reversed. The outbreak of the Korean War, which pitted the PRC and the United States on opposite sides of an international conflict, ended any opportunity for accommodation between the PRC and the United States. Truman's desire to prevent the Korean conflict from spreading south led to the U.S. policy of protecting the Chiang Kai-shek government on Taiwan.

For more than twenty years after the Chinese revolution of 1949, there were few contacts, limited trade and no diplomatic ties between the two countries. Until the 1970s, the United States continued to recognize the Republic of China, located on Taiwan, as China's true government and supported that government's holding the Chinese seat in the United Nations.

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Milestones: 1945-1952 - Office of the Historian

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On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which broke out immediately following World War II and had been preceded by on and off conflict between the two sides since the 1920's.