The Rise of the Republic of China

After the fall of the Manchu Dynasty, new leaders with new ideas began to emerge. The true rise of the Republic was a gradual one spanning four decades before becoming Communist ruled China. Sun Yat-sen, the New Cultural Movement, Chiang Kaishek, the Long March, and Mao Zedong were the people and factors that gave rise to the new China.

In 1917, Sun Yat-sen had become the commander-in-chief of a rival military government. He reestablished the Kuomintang two years later and became president of the southern government in 1921. That same year, Sun turned to the Soviet Union, who offered scathing attacks on "Western imperialism" and sent advisors, but who supported both Sun and the new Chinese Communist Party. In 1923, these advisors began aiding to the reorganization of the Kuomintang in the Communist Party while still maintaining their personal identities. Sun died in 1925 and the Kuomintang divided into left- and right- wing factions (Republican).

During Sun’s reign of power, the New Cultural Movement emerged, from 1917-1923. It was a time set with political fervor, student activism and iconoclastic and reformist intellectual currents set in motion by patriotic student protest. The peak of this movement can be seen during the May Fourth Movement of 1919 where students were returning from other countries with theories like the complete Westernization of China and socialism. It rekindled the fading cause of the republican revolution and became a great stepping stone from which Sun Yat-sen got most of his political boost (Republican).

Chiang Kaishek became Kuomintang leader in 1926 and began making policies to slip from and destroy the Communists. He established a new anti-Communist government in Nanjing in 1927, which would remain for a decade. The "Northern Expedition" was Chiang’s successful policy that unified Southern China and let the Nationalists control the lower Yangzi, but also included the massacring of Communist members. With the use of German "advisors" in 1934, Communists were hunted down and killed to "eliminate the cancer of Communism." This was the start of the Long March (Birth).

While fleeing the countryside from eminent destruction, the Communists met up with each other and began a year long journey called the Long March. They had started with 100,000 people and at the end they had gone 6,000 miles and only had between four and eight thousand people. The main reason for this was that they didn’t know where they were going. They went north, then west, but the warlords didn’t like them very much so they had to backtrack and went in another direction. They finally ended up somewhere near Yan’an where Mao Zedong began to use the power he gained during the Long March to become the "sole leader of the Revolution."(Birth)

In 1939, World War II had started and that took the Nationalists focus off of the Communists and on to fighting the Japanese, now that they had to fight the Americans as well. What was discovered during this time, was that the Nationalists were disorganized and corrupt and that this would only intensify after the war was over. The Communists, on the other hand, were employing guerrilla tactics they had developed during the civil war and were doing a better job at fighting the Japanese than the nationals were. In 1949, the Nationalists were deep in debt and thought that by printing more money they could pay all of it off, which they did, but this only led to hyperinflation. Later that year they fled to Taiwan and Mao created the People’s Republic of China (Birth).

Works Cited

"The Birth of Modern China." Republican China (1911-1949).

<http://www.hk.super.net/~paulf/china4.html#KMT> (2 Oct 1997).

"Republican China." Republican China. <http://www-

chaos.umd.edu/history/republican.html> (30 Sept 1997).