Socialist Party Australia - China: The Tradition of Struggle

Greg Bradshaw, SP Melbourne City branch, looks at the history of China from a socialist perspective

The Tradition of Struggle
By Greg Bradshaw
For centuries, the people of China have been exploited and repressed. The corrupt Manchu Dynasty had ruled China since 1644. But the Chinese peasantry and working classes were not ones to lay down and die. They were willing to strike, willing to take up arms, willing to take affirmative action. They had a tradition of struggle. Despite their eagerness to fight, victory, and a better way of life, was not assured.
Between 1840 and 1858 a number of wars were fought (collectively titled the "Opium Wars"), during which Great Britain forcibly opened China to foreign trade. In particular, the trading of opium. The people of China were then forced to accept opium in exchange for their goods, which eventually drained away virtually all the silver in China. Finally in 1864 the peasants of Taiping tried to oppose the opium trade through the "Great Peace Rebellion". This in turn was utterly crushed by the combined military attack of the Manchu forces, British Army, and mixed European and American mercenaries. Similar insurrections also emerged, such as the "Boxer Rebellion" of 1900 that tried to fight foreign domination. After it too was suppressed, allied reprisals included mass executions, new concessions and legalised foreign garrisons on Chinese soil.
It seemed that every time the people of China tried to fight imperialism, it would come back stronger, and more oppressive. But for all the repressive measures imperialism enforced, a new feeling had been born that rippled through China. A feeling that they, the people, could fight back- a feeling of revolution. This feeling continued to escalate up until 1911 where the "Republican Revolution" (the "First Revolution") overthrew the Manchu dynasty in central and south China, once and for all. The 267-year-old tyrannical rule was over. In that same year, Sun Yat-sen was declared President of China at Nanking, and the "Kuomintang" (literally translated as the "People's Party") was formed. But the Kuomintang was far from a party for the people. Time and time again they proved themselves to be the capitalist-nationalist organisation that they were, led by bureaucrats, and an enemy of the people.
It was the revolution of 1925-27 (the "Second Revolution) that would prove to be one of the most notable events of human history. The people of China did the work of animals, lived in similar conditions, and were often considered to be of less value. As far as imperialism was concerned, they were the most despicable of elements. In 1925 in Canton or Shanghai, one could read outside restaurants: "No dogs or Chinese allowed". Had this movement succeeded, it would have saved the people years of heartache, and changed the course of world history forever.
By 1925, China had not even reached the Marxist definition of capitalism that most of the advanced nations had reached by the 17th or 18th centuries. It had a population of 400-500 million people, with the great majority living off the land. 55% were landless labourers. About 20% owned narrow strips of land that was impossible to earn a decent living off. In contrast, 65% of the cultivable land was possessed by 10-19% of the total population.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 had shown that the peasantry could not solely carry out a capitalist democratic revolution- that they would turn either to capitalists or the proletariat for leadership. If the capitalists were to lead, it would result in a classic bourgeois development. Only through the working class leadership could the socialist tasks of the revolution be overcome. The Chinese working class really only started to develop in the course of World War 1. The first modern unions began in 1918, but in the space of six years the General Labour Union's membership had swelled to three million workers, and enormous movements were carried out on the questions of hours, wages and conditions.
In 1921 the Chinese Communist Party was founded with a starting base of 51. Yet by 1927, its membership contained over 60,000 workers. All the conditions existed for a movement to successfully carry through the revolution. Ironically it was the organisations that the working class had themselves created that stood in their way. The Russian Revolution had degenerated from around 1923 onwards, which coincided with the decisive period of the development of the Chinese Revolution. It was the leadership of the Russian Communist Party and Communist International that so heavily affected the leaders of the CCP. Increasingly the Communist International leaned on capitalists and the heads of unions to hasten revolutions through diplomacy.
In 1924 Russia ordered the CCP to subordinate itself to the capitalist- nationalist Kuomintang. From 1911-19 the Kuomintang had been in a state of complete disrepair, and only through intervention by the Stalinist bureaucracy in Russia did it regain power. At this stage Chiang Kai-shek had been singled out to become the military leader of the Kuomintang. These events were to lead to disastrous consequences for the Chinese Revolution and the people of China.
From 1919-25, Chinese students joined the working class in a huge movement targeting living standards, jobs, hours (the 8 hour day especially), and education etc. It was on the 23rd of June 1925 that the revolution truly began, when British and French machine gunners shot down a student and worker demonstration. The workers of Canton and Hong Kong retaliated in a sixteen-month strike that paralysed Chinese imperialism. 100,000 workers moved from Hong Kong to Canton where they came to real power. They cleared out opium dens, closed down gambling joints and improvised an embryonic soviet. The independent working class movements provided a unique opportunity for the CCP. The peasants were also taking affirmative action. But due to their subordination to the Kuomintang, they were swept along in a counter-revolution designed to crush the labour movement.
Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang slowly gained more power, and were accepted as a sympathetic section of the Communist International in 1926. Trotsky solely opposed their entry, and stood for the complete independence of the CCP from the Kuomintang. On the 20th of March 1926, Chiang Kai-shek closed down workers organisations, arrested worker’s leaders and subsequently shot around 300 CCP members. A military dictatorship emerged in Canton, and still the CCP did not raise its voice. On the 21st of March 1927, 800,000 workers took up arms against the northern warlords. The Kuomintang refused to help fight the warlords, even though its First Division defied orders and marched to Shanghai to aid the workers. Within a week of their victory, Chiang Kai-shek travelled to Shanghai and closed down the General Labour Union. A counter-revolution followed, and Kuomintang troops attacked workers and assassinated worker’s leaders. Chiang Kai-shek, knowing he could not trust the First Division, ordered them out of Shanghai. The First Division Commander approached the CCP and said: "What shall I do? I am prepared to stay here and fight Chiang Kai-shek and arrest Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang leaders." After prevaricating for 48 hours, the CCP eventually recommended him to obey the order. Later, because of the CCP’s cowardice, the same Commander hunted down the "Red Army" in Canton in 1930-34.
On the 12th of April 1927, an estimated 35,000 workers, many of them CCP members, were killed in Shanghai alone as the Kuomintang attacked. The Second Revolution was brought to a definitive end when the CCP staged a demonstration in Canton that was bloodily repressed.
The consequence of this revolution was a ruthless military dictatorship that suspended all the democratic rights of the Chinese people. By 1929, a minimum estimate of 150,000 people had perished as a direct result of the Kuomintang regime. Japanese imperialism moved into China looking hungrily towards their natural resources. Japan virtually conquered Manchuria and advanced to Shanghai with no serious resistance. Similarly, American, British and French imperialism also seized the opportunity to extend their influence. At this stage Trotsky proposed the use of "transitional demands" which could mobilise the people of China. But corrupt local officials collected ridiculously high taxes up to 80 years in advance! The Kuomintang was completely incapable of standing up to imperialism in any of its forms, so instead focused their energies in fighting the Red Armies.
Some of the greatest history of China was created between 1929-34 when Red Armies fought Kuomintang forces up to six times as powerful, and were still victorious. After the Red Army regrouped into a single army, it took over half a million troops and over 400 aeroplanes (when the Red Army had none) for the Kuomintang to break them. In October 1934 some 90,000 Red Armymen began the arduous march of 10,000 km, which took exactly one year, while continuously fighting enemies along the way. The rank and file of the Kuomintang finally revolted against Chiang Kai-shek and his total inability to fight the ever more powerful imperialists. They were now willing to fight for the revolution, but instead the CCP created a "united front" "deal" with Chiang Kai-shek, continuing his reign of terror. So during the revolution (the "Third Revolution") of 1944-49, Chiang Kai-shek kept his considerably weaker forces on China’s west side, fighting Japanese imperialism only occasionally, leaving most of the fighting to the Red Army, who incidentally they continued to fight wherever possible, despite their agreement! At the end of World War 2 with the dropping of two nuclear bombs on Japan, the Red Army recaptured Manchuria. The capitalist system in China was completely bankrupt, and the rate of inflation was 10,000%! Money became completely worthless and Chinese society became completely disorganised. As a direct result of the Kuomintang dictatorship, a minimum estimate was now that one million people had perished, that is aside from the slaughter from Japanese imperialism. At this stage it was correct for the CCP to negotiate with the Kuomintang, to prove to the people that they wanted peace, and it was the Kuomintang who was creating the conflict. Mao Zedong put forward a programme completely unarguable for the Chinese people, but impossible for the Kuomintang to agree with. The programme included the punishment of war criminals; the cancellation of Kuomintang power, the fake constitution and treaties of national betrayal; the democratic reform of the army; the confiscation of bureaucratic capital (take over capitalism); a reform of the agrarian system; and the convocation of a consultative national conference. In a series of battles, the Kuomintang armies were smashed, and resulted in their total collapse in 1948. In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan, where his regime still exists today.
Japanese imperialism had been defeated. American imperialism could not directly intervene due to war-weariness. It was now inevitable that capitalism would be overthrown. This was because of the bankruptcy of Chinese capitalism; because of the weakness of imperialism on a world scale and the greatly increased strength of Stalinism due to the second World War; and because Mao Zedong had a model of the kind of state and society they could confidently build in China. So capitalism was eliminated. But the CCP was by no means communist. The Russian Revolution had deteriorated from a healthy worker’s democracy, but the China had become a deformed worker’s state, a Stalinist state from the beginning, that still needs political reform (a "Political Revolution") to implement a true socialist democracy.
Mao Zedong’s government turned into a ruling class bureaucracy. Through the so-called "Cultural Revolution", Mao implemented the "Red Guard" to protect the bureaucrats. Ironically, it was the very same Red Guard that shook this crooked government right to the very core. Indeed, clashes between the Red Army and Red Guard cost the lives of thousands, possibly millions of people through bloody suppression. Mao Zedong died in 1976, and his widow and three other CCP members were put on trial and given life sentences without even a murmur of public protest. The people of China continue to fight for a fairer existence against their corrupt repressers. Even today, they continue their tradition of struggle.