A Political and Economic History of China, Part 30: The First Nationalist-Communist Civil War of 1927-1936, Part 2 of 2

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6 MIN READ - The Cautious Optimism Correspondent for Economic Affairs and Other Egghead Stuff's series on China history moves into the 1930's, this time recounting how very close Chiang Kai-shek came to annihilating the Chinese communists completely, but still failed.

By 1933 Chiang Kai-shek had attempted four “annihilation campaigns” against rural mountainous communist rebel strongholds in Jiangxi province, all of which failed in the face of unconventional CCP guerilla tactics.

Chiang was also simultaneously trying to hold off an increasingly aggressive Japanese army operating from Manchuria while trying to enlarge and modernize his armies for that eventual confrontation, all while attempting to reform China itself.

Against this historical backdrop 21st century CCP propaganda has slightly toned down its usual damnation of Chiang Kai-shek. Instead of the Mao and Deng-eras’ constant referrals to Chiang the “imperialist running dog” who “tried to divide the country”—an ironic accusation given that Chiang controlled most of China and it was the Communists’ efforts to overthrow his government that divided the country—the modern CCP portrayal of Chiang depicts him more as a leader who was simply overwhelmed by the circumstances: renegotiating treaties with western powers, maintaining control of China through alliances with untrustworthy warlords, restraining the Japanese in Manchuria, later resisting an all-out Japanese invasion of China, fighting the Communists, and attempting to reform the most populous country on earth after a century-plus of neglect by the corrupt Qing dynasty.

According to today’s CCP, Chiang Kai-shek was simply a man who wasn’t up to the task (but of course the Communists say they would have been).

The Correspondent also believes the CCP’s more conciliatory tone is the product of contemporary politics. Today the Taiwanese Nationalist Party (KMT), which still believes in the principle of One China and eventual reunification with the mainland, has been at odds with the independence-minded Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which the CCP despises. Beijing has softened its tone a little about Chiang Kai-shek in hopes of gaining the Taiwanese KMTs favor, promoting a more disarming portrait of the CCP, and theoretically undermining the DPP’s political power.

Good luck with that.

Meanwhile, back to 1933.

THE FIFTH ANNIHILATION CAMPAIGN

After four failed “annihilation campaigns” Chiang Kai-shek began cooperating with German military advisors who recommended a change in strategy. With a new blueprint for battlefield victory Chiang believed he finally held the key to defeating the communist guerillas and prepared to launch a decisive fifth “annihilation campaign.” 

The fifth annihilation campaign strategy was indeed markedly different from the failed previous four.

Instead of large army groups attempting to locate and confront small and elusive communist guerillas, the Nationalist army would encircle a much larger territory known to enclose the bulk of the CCP’s forces. A blockade would then be established to prevent food and supplies from reaching the rebels.

From there Nationalist troops would tighten the noose, or “ring,” by advancing systematically and deliberately towards the center and building bases, fortifications, and barriers along the way to slowly squeeze the Communists until they could finally be “annihilated” by bombardment.

This new strategy required long-term planning and more patience than a simpler frontal assault, but it proved far more effective. The Communists found themselves slowly falling back on all sides, retreating into smaller and smaller sanctuaries, and by the fall of 1934 Chiang was preparing for their final destruction.

Fortunately for the Communists they had key spies working within Nationalist army headquarters who caught wind of Chiang’s endgame. These spies were able to access documents with the precise timeline of Chiang’s plans, down to the most minute details, and they meticulously recorded them in small booklets. The stolen intelligence was then handed to another spy named Xiang Yunian whose job it was to deliver it to the main communist stronghold inside the encirclement front lines.

Since anyone who attempted to cross over could be arrested or even killed by KMT troops, Xiang had to proceed carefully. He spent many days hiding out in the mountains dressed as a beggar in rags. To make his disguise more convincing he used a rock to knock out four of his front teeth, and he carried a sack of rotten food on his back with the valuable intelligence hidden at the bottom of the pile.

Through concealment and disguise Xiang successfully penetrated the Nationalist army “ring” and reached the communist base. Once alerted to the KMT’s final annihilation plans Mao Zedong quickly mobilized his troops for a breakout from the encirclement which began in October 1934.

At the very last minute, right before Chiang had finished building the last western fortifications, electrified barbed wire fences, and mobilizing his troops into position to repel an attempted escape, approximately 86,000 communist troops fled to the west beginning an epic 6,000 mile retreat known in CCP lore as “The Long March.”

THE LONG MARCH

The Long March reads like a patriotic saga in today’s PRC history books. During their long retreat communist forces were constantly pursued by Chiang Kai-shek’s armies. Marching deeper and deeper into western China the Communists endured small battles and skirmishes on a near-daily basis. In order to avoid a full frontal confrontation, CCP commanders were often forced to accept losses, sometimes sacrificing brigade or small division-sized units to buy time that allowed the main force to escape repeated KMT encirclement attempts.

The Communists retreated into Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, the latter marginally controlled by warlords who gave them a brief reprieve, then deeper into the rocky and mountainous regions of Guizhou and Yunnan provinces.

(Today Guizhou and Yunnan contain 18 of the world’s 25 highest bridges, spanning the two provinces’ many steep river gorges)

Along the way they suffered casualties not only at the hands of pursuing Nationalist troops, but also to disease, exposure on snowcapped mountain passes, or drowning in cold marshes and inland swamps.

The dwindling communist army turned north into even more barren and remote Gansu and Ningxia provinces. Eventually they found their way into the remote northern province of Shaanxi, again under marginal warlord control, where they linked up with 15,000 more communists who had gathered from all regions of northern China. 

Thus marked the end of the yearlong Long March, but losses to KMT attacks and the elements reduced the original force of 86,000 to about 8,000.

Even with their numbers greatly diminished, surviving the Long March elevated the CCP’s public image and strangely enough cemented Mao Zedong’s position as undisputed leader of the CCP. The Correspondent remembers years ago reading that Mao gave a victory speech from the CCP’s new base in Yan’an. To his few remaining troops he declared (paraphrasing) “Now only 8,000 of us remain, but those 8,000 have proven they are made of gold for having survived the Long March.”

If the Economics Correspondent were one of the survivors and witnessed Mao’s leadership losing over 90% of the army’s forces, he would think such a “victory speech” serves more to condemn Mao’s leadership instead of elevating him to top comrade status.

However Mao was known as a gifted orator who could sway crowds with the flowery poetry of his speeches, and the Long March was an epic feat for those who survived it. So who’s to judge why the handful of remaining communists welcomed him as beloved leader of the now dilapidated Chinese Red Army.

EDGAR SNOW

Providing another boost to the CCP’s image, this time to overseas readers, was American journalist and communist sympathizer Edgar Snow who gave a series of interviews in Shaanxi. 

Mao arranged a large party of soldiers to greet Snow upon his arrival, cheering slogans of praise for the American which he admitted later in life had an emotional effect on him. Over the next several days Snow interviewed Mao and, at the end, was asked by communist officials to revise his notes and portray Mao in the most flattering light possible (to which Snow did not object).

In 1937 Snow published the book "Red Star Over China" which introduced Mao to the world, portraying him as a sincere communist who cared deeply for the working classes and a crusader against world fascism who was committed to resisting Japanese encroachment on China.

Once the book was translated into Chinese it also helped raise domestic opinion of Mao, elevating him to something of a hero for his “struggle” against the Japanese. 

Over the preceding years Chiang Kai-shek had continued a policy of Japanese appeasement while the Communists had loudly promoted messages of patriotic resistance. The contrast gained the Communists more and more Chinese support, but in reality they launched extremely limited and wholly symbolic operations against only the periphery of Japanese-occupied territory, mostly between Shaanxi and Manchuria. Nevertheless the guerilla attacks, while militarily negligible, provided immeasurable propaganda value.

Most Chinese had become frustrated with Chiang’s reluctance to take the Japanese head-on in Manchuria and questioned why he was more concerned with warring on fellow Chinese. But Mao’s small-scale operations against Japanese forces, combined with the Chinese translation of Edgar Snow’s book, served to boost domestic public opinion of the Communists. 

Chiang was losing the public relations battle.

We’ll continue with the end of the first Nationalist-Communist civil war in the next article.

A Political and Economic History of China, Part 29: The First Nationalist-Communist Civil War of 1927-1936, Part 1 of 2

Click here to read the original Cautious Optimism Facebook post with comments

5 MIN READ - After a whirlwind of Trump executive orders and articles about tariffs, DOGE, and inflation the Cautious Optimism Correspondent for Economic Affairs resumes his series of articles on Chinese history—this time discussing Chiang Kai-shek’s early years ruling China and his ongoing conflict with CCP rebels.

Our last column ended at Chiang Kai-shek’s tenuous alliance with the CCP which, on the morning of April 12, 1927, he broke when his secret police and Green Gang elements raided their offices and hideouts, slaughtering thousands of communists.

Tensions had been brewing for some time between the Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Communists, but now the break was completely in the open. With his surprise attack Chiang decimated much of the CCP organization and gained a seemingly insurmountable upper hand. Those communists who survived the purge fled from the KMT controlled cities into the mountainous terrain of nearby Jiangxi province. 

THE CHINESE SOVIET REPUBLIC

Once hidden away in the remote countryside the communist fugitives actually got a short reprieve: The KMT’s final annihilation of the CCP was put on hold.

Readers may recall that by 1927 the Northern Expedition to unify all of eastern China was still not complete, having only reached Shanghai. Chiang continued north to wrestle Beijing and Manchuria from warlords like Feng Yuxiang and Zhang Zuolin. Once the Northern Expedition was complete he would attend to mopping up the scattered remaining communists.

While Chiang advanced northward the path of the now devastated CCP was being remapped in the remote countryside.

With so many CCP officials killed in the purge, Mao Zedong rose to prominence and linked up with another famous communist named Zhu De (pronounced “zhew duh”). Zhu, who was trained as a cadet at the Qing dynasty’s Yunnan Military Academy, reorganized the military wing of the party. 

The Correspondent might return to discuss more Zhu De later, but for now CO readers should know he proved highly competent in guerilla warfare and in later years was elevated to hero of the Chinese Civil War of 1945-49. In the early PRC years Zhu was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), meaning American and UN forces would find themselves pitted against his nearly three million PLA troops in Korea.

With Mao handling political and ideological affairs and Zhu skilled in warfare the two became a formidable alliance—one that would soon burst into open disagreement with the CCP’s visiting Soviet Comintern advisors.

The Soviets wanted to follow standard Marxist credo which predicts communist revolution will always foment from exploited industrial workers in large cities. They urged the Chinese communists to return to Wuhan and Shanghai—now completely controlled by the KMT and its secret police—to agitate strikes and socialist uprisings.

Mao and Zhu, both children of farmers, broke with orthodoxy and pinned their hopes on the rural peasantry to spur revolution. The CCP took control of remote villages and large swaths of rural Jiangxi and Hunan provinces.

Eventually an archipelago of loosely connected CCP territories formed although they weren’t formally founded as the Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) until 1931. For the few short years it lasted, the CSR acted as a nebulous, disjointed Marxist “nation within a nation.”

At its peak the CSR’s territory encompassed perhaps 9 million people and officially it was declared a “democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants.” But just like other communist regimes the real power lied at the top; in this case the Central Executive Committee which was chaired by Mao.

True to communist principles the CSR confiscated land and farms from landlords and redistributed it to peasants in exchange for political support. Uncooperative landlords and other bourgeoisie were outright murdered along with “wrong thinking” prisoners who were worked to death. Estimates of deaths at the hands of the CSR lie in the hundreds of thousands which, within the context of a peak 9 million population, represents a high rate of death.

Of course hundreds of thousands would later prove to be a mere rounding error compared to the many tens of millions who would die once Mao's CCP controlled all of China (1949-1976).

CCP AND KMT CLASHES

With some territory under marginal CSR control Soviet Comitern advisor Mikhail Borodin urged communist forces to expand outwards and launch retaliatory frontal assaults against KMT forces. This strategy ultimately proved futile, even disastrous, for the outgunned and outnumbered rebels and it strengthened the Mao-Zhu alliance’s case for smaller-scale guerilla warfare. Of their new tactics Zhu famously declared:

-When the enemy advances, we retreat
-When the enemy halts and encamps, we harass them
-When the enemy seeks to avoid battle, we attack
-When the enemy retreats, we pursue

At first these guerilla tactics were effective and provided CSR-controlled territory some reprieve from KMT forces, in part because Chiang Kai-shek was still distracted by his campaigns against the remaining warlords.

By the end of 1928 Chiang declared the Northern Expedition over, but it wasn’t.

Two powerful warlords with whom he had reached power sharing agreements rebelled later that year. Feng Yuxiang, who Chiang had appointed as Vice President of the legislature, and Yan Xishan, who was now Minister of the Interior and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the army, joined forces in revolt.

Once again Chiang was distracted by his quest for unification and defeated the rebelling warlord armies by 1930. 

Now at last Chiang could turn his attention back to the Communists, this time with a pair of military “annihilation campaigns” in 1930 and 1931. Both were surprisingly ineffective against the communists’ newly adopted guerilla tactics. Using rapid mobility and stealth the Communists captured many KMT weapons and prisoners.

Chiang planned a third annihilation campaign in 1931 but was forced to call it off due to yet another distraction: the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

Japan planned to provoke China into an all-out war, one where its modernized military would rout the Chinese, but Chiang didn’t take the bait. Instead he employed negotiation and diplomacy, buying time to snuff out the communist rebels while enlarging and modernizing his own armies.

This policy of “first internal pacification, then external resistance,” effectively appeasing the invading Japanese while ridding himself of domestic rebels, would prove increasingly unpopular with the Chinese public and eventually caught up with Chiang as we’ll discuss soon in another column.

Hence in 1932 Chiang was free, once again, to focus on the Communists and he attempted a fourth “annihilation campaign” which was also unsuccessful against guerilla tactics. 

After so many failures using conventional frontal warfare against a swift, mobile, and elusive enemy Chiang knew he needed a change in strategy and he found one, a subject we’ll review in the next column.

Trump Derangement Syndrome for the 19th Century (yes, really)

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2 MIN READ - The Cautious Optimism Correspondent for Left Coast Affairs and Other Inexplicable Phenomena is hoping to be nominated for a medical Nobel Prize (never mind, no conservatives or libertarians allowed) for discovering Trump Derangement Syndrome is a retroactive mental condition that reaches back two centuries for new victims to cancel.

As most of CO Nation knows, a selective group of prestigious scholars in history and political science participates in regular “Presidential Scholar Surveys” to collectively rank America’s 45 presidents from best to worst.

Readers probably also know, or at least suspect, that these academics can and often have a liberal slant that influences their subjective scoring.

But the Left Coast Correspondent has discovered evidence that these so-called scholars can suddenly and drastically change their rankings centuries back due to Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The case in point exhibit is Andrew Jackson’s recent treatment by presidential historians.

Going back to the first survey in 1948 Jackson has traditionally ranked highly, always in the top or second quartile of all presidents for 66 years. 

That is, until Donald Trump publicly announced that the populist and anti-corruption Jackson is his favorite president in 2016.

Looking at the attached chart and summarizing all the major polls going back to 1962 we can see Jackson averaged around 9th place all the way up until 2015 where he also placed 9th.

But as soon as Trump announced his admiration for Jackson Old Hickory instantly fell to 16th place and bottomed out at 23rd in the 2022 poll, losing 14 spots.

The Correspondent checked revisions for every other president from 2015 to 2022 and none comes anywhere close to such a dramatic change, up or down.

The next most volatile change is a three way-tie among seven point movers, half that of Jackson’s. 

In what will probably surprise no one, Ronald Reagan fell seven points from 11th place to 18th while Barack Obama rose seven points from 18th to 11th, effectively trading places with and leapfrogging the Gipper.

And Ulysses Grant improved seven points from 28th to 21st.

Again, Jackson’s decline was double the move of the three runner-ups.

The Correspondent thinks he knows what happened here although he hasn’t put every participating historian under the lie detector. Once Trump declared Andrew Jackson was his man Trump Derangement Syndrome took hold and most historians decided to punish Jackson as a surrogate for Trump.

Furthermore, each individual historian likely thought “I’ll sneak in my own epic demotion of Trump’s favorite president, but since I’m only one of roughly 150 other scholars the ludicrous magnitude of my freefall downgrade won’t be noticed."

What each historian probably didn’t anticipate was how the far-reaching and delusional effects of TDS would craze all academics in the same manner, not just themselves as individuals, and that unbeknownst to each the more visible ranking constructed from all their tantrums combined would plummet just as far.

Andrew Jackson may have been elected 197 years ago and died in 1845, but even he doesn’t escape the pettiness, rage, and (shall I say hatred and intolerance?) of 21st century Trump-deranged presidential historians.

p.s. In the latest 2024 poll Joe Biden has been declared 14th best president, two spots higher than Ronald Reagan.

Unsurprisingly, Barack Obama has been elevated even higher into the pantheon of greats at 7th, better than John Adams, James Madison, Dwight Eisenhower, JFK, and even their beloved Bill Clinton. According to them Obama is the greatest American president since World War II.

Donald Trump ranks dead last among all presidents at number 45.