Warm-Up

Prompt: Explain how the leader in the propaganda posters is an example of a “cult of personality”.

Cult of personality – a regime uses propaganda to create an idealized, heroic, and at times worshipful image of a leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise

Rise of Communism in China

Imperial China Collapses

China was humiliated for years by outsiders

Chinese ppl believed modernization and industrialization were the key for survival

Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) and its leader Sun Yixian pushed for reforms

Overthrow of the Qing emperor in 1911 –Sun became president of the new Republic of China

Sun Yixian – Traditional & Modern

Imperial China Collapses

Sun wanted a gov’t based on the “Three Principles of the People”

Nationalism

People’s rights – democracy

People’s livelihood – econ. Security

Sun lacked authority and mil. support to secure national unity

Imperial China Collapses

Sun turned over power to a powerful general Yuan Shikai

After he died in 1916, civil war broke out as power fell to the provincial warlords/mil. leaders

WWI – major issues

Beijing declared war against Germ. hoping they would get back territory after Germ. defeat

Instead, this land was given to Japan under the Treaty of Ver.

Imperial China Collapses

• News of the Treaty of Ver. spread outrage across China

• May 4, 1919 – 3K students demonstrated in Beijing and spread across China

• May Fourth Movement

• Showed commitment to the goal of est. a strong, modern gov’t

• Shift from Western demo. to Soviet communism

May Fourth Movement

The Communist Party in China

1921 – group met in Shanghai to organize the Communist Party (CP); among them was Mao Zedong

Mao believed he could bring rev. to a rural country w/ the peasants as the revolutionaries

TPS: Why does Mao believe peasants would make true revolutionaries?

Nationalist Party (NP) set up control in south China – allied themselves with the Communist party

Mao Zedong

The Communist Party in China

After Sun Yixian died in 1925, the new leader Jiang Jieshi promised democracy and pol. rights to all Chinese

NP was actually corrupt and less demo. – peasants threw support to the CP

Primary Source Qs – Report on the Investigation of the Peasant Mvmt in Hunan (March 1927) – answer in your notes!

Civil War in China

April 1927 – NP moved on Shanghai, nearly wipe out the CP

Jiang became president, but betrayal towards CP started a civil war

Civil War in China

Nationalists vs. Communists

Mao recruited peasants to join his Red Army

Recall: Where else did we have a “Red Army”?

Trained in guerrilla warfare

Holed up in south China in the hills

Civil War in China

The Long March

• In 1933, Jiang and the NP gathered 700K troops to take over CP in the mountains

• 100K CP fled and began a hazardous, 6000 mi. journey called the Long March

• 1934-1935 – CP kept running from NP troops, thousands died from hunger, cold, exposure, and battle wounds

The Long March

The Long March

Civil War in China

After a year of marching, Mao and 7-8K survivors settled in caves in NW China

Meanwhile, the Japanese invade China in 1937; took control of a large part of China

Civil war forced into truce to fight off the Japanese

Civil War in China

NP and CP temporarily united to fight the Jp.

TPS: Did Jiang and Mao resolve their differences?

Agreed to promote the original “Three Principles of the People”

Summary Q: How did the Chinese people assert their power in reaction to foreign influence?

The Long March: A Poem by Mao Zedong

The Red Army fears not the trials of the Long March

And thinks nothing of a thousand mountains and rivers.

The Wuling Ridges spread out like ripples;

The Wumeng Ranges roll like balls of clay.

Warmly are the cliffs wrapped in clouds washed by the Gold Sand;

Chilly are the iron chains lying across the width of the Great Ferry.

A thousand acres of snow on the Min Mountain delight

My troops who have just left them behind.

— Mao Zedong, September 1935

From David L. Weitzman, Mao Tse-tung and The Chinese Revolution.

The Long March Assignment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5cl0GjPjy4 –Start at 38:00 – 46:00

As you watch the video, write down 2-3 images described or shown. Choose one image and draw it out. Then write a short (2 paragraph) journal entry written from the perspective of a soldier who participated in the Long March.

Your final product should include: 1. an image (drawing, sketch) in color and 2. a journal entry (2 paragraph min.)