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CHINA, CIVIL WAR and JAPAN'S INTRUSION
The Communists in Jiangxi were melded with peasants there in what Mao Zedong described as fish in the sea tactics -- the fish being the Communists, the sea being the peasants. The Communists had found that peasants would not commit themselves to change if they felt that matters were hopeless, and the peasants believed that matters were hopeless if their revolution could not defend itself militarily. The Communists had organized a Red Army that gave revolutionary peasants confidence. And with the Guomindang government distracted, the Communists in southern Jiangxi had expanded, and in November 1931 they declared their area in Jiangxi a Soviet republic.
The Communist Party line, originating in Moscow, was that in China's soviet territories a resolute class struggle should be waged against rich peasants - China's kulaks. But in Jiangxi, Mao Zedong was deviating from the Party line. For the sake of maintaining the economy in his area he and others had initiated a policy of allowing the more wealthy peasants to produce and to sell their grain to merchants in areas under Guomindang control. Mao believed that an attempt at self-sufficiency would have meant disaster, and because Mao ignored the Party line, he came under attack within the Party, which labeled him as a deviationist.
In May 1932, a couple of months after the short war against the Japanese around Shanghai had ended, Chiang began the first phase of his fourth "Communist suppression" expedition. This began first against the biggest of the Communist forces, near the northern border of Hunan Province. Within three months, most of the Communists in this area were routed, many escaping into more mountainous areas, some fleeing north and some west. Then Chiang moved again against Communist forces in Jiangxi Province. Rather than rushing into Communist held territory as before, Chiang's plan was for encircling the region and advancing slowly inward, stopping after each short advance to build secure defensive positions, with trenches and block-houses. The block-houses were impregnable because the Communist forces had no artillery. And each step inward by Chiang's forces was to be made after the area had been militarily secured -- a campaign designed to take months.
Chiang's plans against the Communist forces were disrupted again by the Japanese, as it appeared to Chiang that Japan was about to invade Jehol. The war he did not want with Japan seemed closer as he concluded that Japan's aim was to bring the whole of China under its domination. The Japanese -- so vocal in their opposition to Communism in Japan -- was harming Chiang's efforts. Chiang's troops in Jiangxi began to withdraw to north China, and the Communists in Jiangxi mounted an offensive and succeeded in annihilating two of Chiang's divisions.
It was on January 3, 1933 that Japan began its push into Jehol Province. They Japanese moved through the mountainous province in two to three months. They occupied the three major passes in the Great Wall just north of Beijing. Then they called a truce. China's military had failed again. There was no question of Japan having a superior military machine. And in late May, Chiang chose to settle what he could with the Japanese. Chinese civilians were passionate in their desire to resist the Japan's Intrusions. People organized and demonstrated, to no avail. Chiang wanted more time rather than war. Chiang established an agreement with the Japanese: China's far north, including the capital province, was to be demilitarized, and Chinese police in the north were to maintain order among civilians.
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Copyright © 2010 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.