Socioeconomic Conditions and the Peasantry
- The majority of Chinese people (over 80 percent) were peasants living in poverty, burdened by high taxes, rent payments, and warlord exploitation.
- Rural landlords controlled vast estates, while tenant farmers often faced debt bondage and famine.
- The Guomindang (GMD) government neglected agrarian reform, focusing instead on urban elites and industrial modernization during the Nanjing Decade (1927–1937).
- The CCP gained support by promising land redistribution, fair rent, and protection from landlords, aligning with peasant interests.
- The failure of nationalist reforms and persistent rural inequality created fertile ground for revolutionary ideology based on Marxism adapted to Chinese conditions.
Definition
Landlordism
System of agricultural exploitation in which wealthy landowners controlled rural production and extracted rent from peasants.
Definition
Marxism-Leninism
Communist ideology emphasizing class struggle and revolution; Mao later adapted it to focus on peasants rather than industrial workers.
Political Factors and the Failure of Cooperation
- The First United Front (1923–1927) brought the CCP and GMD together to fight warlordism with Soviet support.
- The alliance collapsed after the Shanghai Massacre (1927), when Jiang Jieshi purged Communists from the GMD, forcing survivors to flee to rural bases.
- The failure of cooperation revealed deep ideological differences: the GMD favored centralized control, while the CCP advocated social revolution.
- The GMD’s corruption and authoritarianism alienated workers, students, and peasants, while the CCP gained legitimacy as a populist alternative.
- The loss of Soviet support after 1927 forced the CCP to reorganize internally, fostering independence under new leaders like Mao Zedong.
Definition
First United Front (1923–1927)
Tactical alliance between the GMD and CCP to unify China against warlords.
Definition
Shanghai Massacre (1927)
Violent suppression of the CCP by Jiang’s forces, ending the First United Front.
The Jiangxi Soviet (1931–1934)
Formation and Governance
- After the 1927 purge, the CCP retreated to Jiangxi Province, where it established a Communist base area led by Mao Zedong and Zhu De.
- The Jiangxi Soviet introduced land redistribution, progressive taxation, literacy campaigns, and rural healthcare, policies that appealed to the peasantry.
- Mao built support through the Red Army’s discipline, codified in the Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention, which emphasized respect for civilians.
- The Soviet’s administration became a testing ground for Mao’s ideas on guerrilla warfare, mass mobilization, and self-reliance.
- The base survived multiple GMD “encirclement campaigns” until it was forced to evacuate in 1934, leading to the Long March.
