Lesson 2 Readings: Ideological Causes of the Chinese Civil War.

KMT. The Political Goal of the KMT for

China: A Chinese Republic.
Similarities differences

Sun Yat-sen (1866 – 1925) is the father of Chiang Kai-shek (1887 – 1975). When
the KMT and the father of modern Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, Chiang Kai-
China. shek eventually succeeded Sun in leading
the KMT.

A republic is a form of government where the citizens have the supreme power, and they
exercise that power by voting and electing representatives to make decisions and govern. A
Republic is governed by a constitution, which defines and dictates the laws of the land and
delegates and confines the political powers of its representatives, political parties, and its
President/Prime Minister. Republics come in different forms of government, but a common
one is a democracy.

Republics have typically and traditionally had capitalistic free market economies with
socialistic programs built in as safety nets for the disadvantaged. Sun-Yat-sen’s (KMT’s)
brand of Republicanism was democratic, nationalistic, and socialistic (see his principles
below). However, the KMT was founded with sympathy for communism and believed, like
communists, that land reform in China had to be socialistic (Sun’s third principle below).
This meant that the KMT aimed to take agricultural land from the land owners and ruling
1
classes and redistribute it amongst that majority poor farming Chinese. Other than this, the
KMT also believed in some free-market capitalism and the need for industrialization.

Sun Yat-sen’s three principles:

1. Nationalism: China first. Strong borders and integrity. No more colonial
powers.
2. Democracy: Republican, constitutional values with individual rights, rule of
law, and leaders elected democratically as the end goal for China (modelled
after Great Britain and the United States).
3. People’s Welfare – the right of people to earn a living. This is where Sun Yat-
sen reveals his socialist values and sympathy for communism. He believed that
his republic should also have strong socialist policies so that the state could
intervene and nationalize land and industry to create more equality amongst the
peasants and working class.
However, Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, and the KMT believed that the only way for China
to get to the stage of Republicanism was first to establish a military dictatorship and then to
slowly evolve into a Republic from there. Read below:

The KMT. According to Sun Yat-sen's plans, the Kuomintang (KMT) was to rebuild China
in three steps: military rule, political tutelage (education for the masses), and constitutional
rule (finally, a Republic). The ultimate goal of the KMT revolution was a democratic
republic, which was not considered to be feasible in China's fragmented state. The military
dictatorship at first was to unite a fragmented China by brute force and maintain order over
the following generation to start modernization. Under KMT military dictatorship, the
economy was to stabilize, and China was to industrialize. In Sun Yat-sen’s eyes, the Chinese
were not ready for a Republic yet because a fully functioning Republic required the masses
to be educated. Under the KMT military dictatorship, the Chinese people would become
literate and educated and prepared for their eventual Republic. Since the KMT had
completed the first step of revolution through seizure of power in 1928, Chiang's rule thus
began a period of what his party considered to be "political tutelage" in Sun Yat-sen's name.
During this so-called Republican Era, many features of a modern, functional Chinese state
emerged and developed. Both leaders of the KMT, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek,
however, did not wish to throw away all Chinese values. Both were suspicious of many of
the Western ideas that came out of the May the 4th Movement as, for example, atheism and
extreme individualism did not fit the Chinese character or tradition well. Sun Yat-sen was
deeply Christian and felt that Christianity fit well with traditional Confucian values. Chiang
Kai-shek was deeply respectful of Chinese history, converted to Christianity for his wife, and
later tried to modernize China’s old Confucianism.

In the end, the KMT offered a blend of the following: an anti-imperial, nationalistic, military
dictatorship which would evolve into republicanism. The KMT state also aimed to
industrialize and included socialism intertwined with a mixture of traditional Christian and
Confucian values.

Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/republic-government
2
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ps/cup/sun_yatsen_revolution.pdf

CCP. The Political Goal of the CCP for

China: A Chinese Communist State.

1978 propaganda poster involving Stalin Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976)

and Mao Zedong

Marxism-Leninism (Communism) refers to a theory for revolutionary change and political

and socioeconomic organization based on common control of the means of production as
opposed to private ownership. While communism or Marxism-Leninism, as it is known,
champions economic justice, it views social revolution and the violent overthrow of the
existing social order as essential components in the process. At its roots, Marxism-Leninism
focuses on atheistic materialism (materialistic meaning that all focus needs to be placed on
what is happening in the material world). Marxism denied the existence and the reality of
any deity. In his early writings Marx viewed religion as a deliberate distraction meant to lead
the oppressed to divert their attention to what he viewed as fabricated otherworldly concerns
rather than address the exploitation that resulted from capitalism and previous class-based
models of society such as feudalism and the slave society.

As a result of the CCP’s Marxist beliefs, the CCP was atheistic, and sought to eradicate
China’s old culture (Confucianism, gender roles, family values, anti-Christian/Islam, etc.) as
the CCP saw these as impediments to China’s modernization.

3
Core tenets and aims of the CCP:
1. Revolution by the proletariat is needed to overthrow the ruling bourgeoisie.
However, in China’s underdeveloped state, there were very few proletariats as
most of the population were peasants. The CCP, therefore, modified Marxist
communism to suit China and aimed for the peasant class, guided by the CCP,
to overthrow the ruling classes (Manchus, Capitalists, Foreign Powers, KMT).
2. Land redistribution by the CCP: land to be forcibly taken from the land owners
and ruling classes and divvied out to all peasants and proletariat.
3. After a period of single-party, dictatorial rule by the CCP, China would
eventually realise true communism: Political, Social, and Economic equality for
all Chinese.
4. The CCP’s brand of communism was extremely nationalistic. This was unlike
Marxism, which sought to do away with borders and unite the workers of the
world.
5. CCP and Marxism were anti-Imperialism and anti-capitalism/free markets. It
aimed to do away with all foreign presence in China and eradicate the free
market economy.

In the end, the CCP offered a blend of the following: an anti-imperial, nationalistic, socialist
dictatorship, which was to evolve into a communist state. The CCP aimed to eliminate the
free market and divide land equally amongst the peasants, it aimed to eliminate China’s old
culture and outdated social practices, and it was atheistic.

“The People's democratic dictatorship is based on the alliance of the working class, the
peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie, and mainly on the alliance of the workers and the
peasants, because these two classes comprise 80 to so per cent of China's population. These
two classes are the main force in overthrowing imperialism and the Kuomintang
reactionaries. The transition from New Democracy to socialism also depends mainly upon
their alliance.” – Mao Zedong “On the People's Democratic Dictatorship” (June 30,
1949), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 421.

“The People's democratic dictatorship needs the leadership of the working class. For it is
only the working class that is most far-sighted, most selfless and most thoroughly
revolutionary. The entire history of revolution proves that without the leadership of the
working class revolution fails and that with the leadership of the working class revolution
triumphs.” – Mao Zedong “On the People's Democratic Dictatorship” (June 30,
1949), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 421.

Sources:
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Communism
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Marxism-Leninism
https://selfstudyhistory.com/2016/08/19/the-chinese-revolution-of-1949-part-3/
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/quotes.htm

4
Similarities. Just How Similar were the
Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist
Party?
An uneasy alliance in a
time of triumph, 1945.

Here, a rare photograph

of the KMT leader,
Chiang Kai-shek, and
CCP leader, Mao
Zedong, standing
together side-by-side.

The two are posing

together shortly after
their common enemy,
Japan, capitulated to the
Allies marking an
official end of World
War II.

From the origins of both the KMT and the CCP, both Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek
were in agreement about many fundamentals. Both factions agreed on the need to resist
imperialism and reestablish true sovereignty over Chinese territory. That would involve, at
various times, ending the legacy of the Unequal Treaties, and especially the
hated extraterritoriality enjoyed by colonial powers in China until the late 1920s, and of
course expelling the Japanese invaders beginning in 1937.

They agreed that China needed to be ruled by a single, authoritarian party — and both
Chiang’s Kuomintang (a.k.a. KMT, Guomindang, or Chinese Nationalist Party) and Mao’s
Chinese Communist Party were in fact organized along explicitly Leninist lines. They agreed
about the need to unify China and to wrest control of all Chinese territories from the many
militarists or warlords (军阀 jūnfá) who controlled much of China from 1916 to 1928 — the
usual parameters of the “Warlord Period,” though the fact is that warlord control of much of
China extended well beyond 1928.

5
They agreed in their repudiation of the imperial, dynastic system, and made no moves to
reintroduce many of its essential features: hereditary monarchy, the civil service examination
system, state Confucianism (even though Chiang Kai-shek would later attempt to readopt
Confucianism as a KMT policy for China). Concomitant with that, they agreed that China
needed, above else, to find the formula to attain wealth and power (富强 fùqiáng) so that a
self-governing and dignified Chinese nation might one day stand among equals in the world.

During the First United Front period, beginning with the reorganization of the Kuomintang
by Sun Yat-sen in 1923, Chinese Communist Party members were allied with the KMT and
allowed to hold dual membership while the two parties focused on a “Northern Expedition”
from their base in Guangdong province in China’s far south. They aimed at retaking the
Chinese heartland — the North China Plain — from the various warlords who held it.

Contrary to Communist propaganda that he was pro-capitalism, both Chiang’s KMT and the

CCP were socialist, believing that land and industry should serve the common people.
Although Chiang often tolerated capitalists out of necessity, he antagonized the capitalists of
Shanghai, often attacking them and confiscating their capital and assets for the use of the
government. Chiang confiscated the wealth of capitalists even while he denounced and
fought against communists. Chiang crushed pro-communist worker and peasant
organizations and rich Shanghai capitalists at the same time. Chiang continued the anti-
capitalist ideology of Sun Yat-sen, directing Kuomintang media to openly attack capitalists
and capitalism, while demanding government controlled industry instead.

Sources:
https://supchina.com/2018/10/22/kuora-mao-zedong-chiang-kai-shek-and-the-battle-for-
china/

Tasks:
Key tenets and aims of each
ideology:
KMT:
Aimed to take agricultural land
from the land owners and
ruling classes and redistribute
it amongst that majority poor
farming Chinese.
To rebuild China in three
steps: military rule, political
tutelage (education for the
masses), and constitutional
rule (finally, a Republic). The
ultimate goal of the KMT
revolution was a democratic
republic.
Aimed to industrialize and
6
Key differences between the
ideologies:
KMT:
Believed in some free-market
capitalism and the need for
industrialization.
China first. Strong borders and
integrity. No more colonial
powers.
Democracy.
CCP:
Viewed social revolution and
the violent overthrow of the
existing social order as
essential components in the
process.
Key similarities between the
ideologies:
Land reform in China had to
be socialistic.
The republic should also have
strong socialist policies so that
the state could intervene and
nationalize land and industry
to create more equality
amongst the peasants and
working class.
Both believed in the
establishment of a military
dictatorship and then evolution
into a Republic from there.
Land redistribution by the
 included socialism intertwined
with a mixture of traditional
Christian and Confucian
values.
CCP:
Common control of the means
of production as opposed to
private ownership.
Sought to eradicate China’s
old culture (Confucianism,
gender roles, family values,
anti-Christian/Islam, etc.) as
the CCP saw these as
impediments to China’s
modernization.
Revolution by the proletariat
(poorest working-class
individual) is needed to
overthrow the ruling
bourgeoisie.
The CCP aimed to eliminate
the free market and divide land
equally amongst the peasants,
it aimed to eliminate China’s
old culture and outdated social
practices, and it was atheistic.
Atheistic materialism.
Viewed religion as a deliberate
distraction.
CCP and Marxism were anti-
Imperialism and anti-
capitalism/free markets. It
aimed to do away with all
foreign presence in China and
eradicate the free market
economy.
CCP.
After a period of single-
party, dictatorial rule by the
CCP.
CCP’s brand of communism
was extremely nationalistic.
Both factions agreed on the
need to resist imperialism and
re-establish true sovereignty
over Chinese territory.
They agreed that China needed
to be ruled by a single,
authoritarian party — and both
Chiang’s Kuomintang and
Mao’s Chinese Communist
Party were in fact organized
along explicitly Leninist lines.
They agreed about the need to
unify China and to wrest
control of all Chinese
territories from the many
militarists or warlords.
They agreed in their
repudiation of the imperial,
dynastic system.

Place yourself in China in the 1920’s. Consider context: there’s been no emperor since 1911,
the country is in chaos and torn apart by warlords, China’s been economically colonized by
Western Powers and Japan since 1839, and China is still largely agrarian with landlords
owning much of the land and the peasantry living in terrible conditions. Which movement
would you support and why? Complete the following chart:

I believe the KMT will be better for China
because…
- Chinese morale was low. Religious
ideals spread by the KMT would have
boosted this.
- The redistribution of land (socialism)
is beneficial for the economy as all
individuals are involved in the
contribution to creating a prosperous
China, rather than simply the wealthy.
- Political tutelage is beneficial as it
7
I believe the CCP will not perform as well
because…
- Dictatorships are often detrimental to
the wellbeing of the citizens as there
is a limit to general freedom.
- Complete and absolute equality
amongst everyone has never worked
previously, and Russia continues to
struggle with this.
- The elimination of Chinese culture
and social practices can be harmful to
 informs individuals of parties and the general culture of China.
ideologies, especially for those who - The revolution of the proletariat is
are uneducated and are not involved unlikely.
in Chinese politics. - Believes violence is fundamental.
- Industrialization is beneficial for Unethical to me.
China – economically suffering
during the 1920s as the Great
Depression rolls along and countries
involve themselves within Chinese
territories (GB, France, USA).
- No colonies is a general idea I agree
with and can be seen as dangerous to
the economy, however, the manner of
colonization is unethical.
- Socialist state intervention is
beneficial as there is a balance of
governmental control and individual
freedom.
- Socialism strives to create equality –
a value I hold.
- Nationalism boosts morale.
- The dynastic system would not be
introduced, which is something I
agree with, as it was classist.