Kuomintang

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The Kuomintang (Chinese: "Nationalist Party"; also romanized Komintang or Guomindang, abbreviated KMT or GMD) are one of the three major parties in the Republic of China (Taiwan) and formerly mainland China's ruling party from 1928 to 1949. Although they struck a few short-term alliances with communists for opportunistic reasons, the Kuomintang have always constituted the largest anticommunist force endemic to China.

History

The Kuomintang was founded by Song Jiaoren in 1912 under Sun Yat-sen’s nominal leadership to succeed the Revolutionary Alliance. China’s government tried to suppress the Kuomintang in 1913 despite their majority in the first national assembly. Under Sun Yat-sen, the party established unrecognized revolutionary governments at Guangzhou in 1918 and 1921 and sent a delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference. Sun accepted aid from the USSR, and after 1922 many Comintern agents, notably Michael Borodin and V. K. Blücher, helped reorganize the party. As part of this, the Communist Party of China joined the Kuomintang as per Sun Yat-sen's request to the Soviets that they in turn ask the CPC to do join. At this time, Sun sought to organize the Kuomintang on more effective lines, as through democratic centralism and such. Eventually however the Kuomintang degraded, with its left-wing members being either killed or sidelined by the right (that, or "left-wingers" like Wang Jingwei swerved to the right). Two decades later, surviving left-wing elements of the Kuomintang (such as Sun Yat-sen's wife) formed the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, which allied with the CPC and continues to exist in the People's Republic of China today.

At its congress in 1924 at Guangzhou, a coalition including Communists adopted Sun's politics, which included the ‘Three People’s Principles’: nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood. Sun claimed that Chinese national reconstruction must follow a progression of stages: military government, tutelage under the Kuomintang, and popular sovereignty.[1]

Civil War

Initially the Kuomintang were the leading force struggling to unify China in the 1920s, working in loose cooperation with the Communists, and was able to turn its military campaigns into popular uprisings by propagandizing among the rural and urban masses. Initially, officers trained according to Soviet methods at the Whampoa Academy directed the army. In 1926, the General commanded a campaign to unify China by destroying the northern warlords’ power, and by the end of the year the Kuomintang's capital was established at Hankow. However, after rich antisocialists from Shanghai approached Chiang Kai-shek offering huge sums of money and financial support for his political ambitions, the Kuomintang violently severed their relations with Communists in 1927 and, without warning, systematically purged perhaps several hundred thousand people suspected of Communist sympathies.[2] This politicide was sustained by the operational and intellectual labor of two Kuomintang factions unofficially known as the Blue Shirts and another fascist faction known as the CC Clique (also known as the Central Club Clique).[3] China's civil war continued with the Kuomintang (led by Chiang Kai-Shek) exterminating the Soviet Chinese Republican army (led by Mao Zedong). Kuomintang received support from the NSDAP and by 1933 received the assistance of its advisors. The Kuomintang were extremely corrupt and were fighting to secure a hierarchic dominance over the massive peasant population.[4]

World War II

The Empire of Japan’s reinvasion in 1937 prompted the Kuomintang to temporarily re-ally with the Communists to more effectively drive out the invaders. For perhaps three years the Kuomintang donated a financial subsidy and allotments of ammunition to the Chinese Communists, and in September 1943 the General publicly stated that the Chinese Communist ‘problem’ should be solved by peaceful, political measures.[5] Nevertheless, from 1937 to 1945 the Kuomintang and the Communist armies still clashed with each other and were preparing for the civil war that they knew would return after they finished expelling the Imperialists. Despite their animosity towards the Empire of Japan, the Kuomintang still received aid from the Third Reich for their suppression of Communism, and top Kuomintang General, Tai Li, acknowledged during the war that Heinrich Himmler was his rôle model. Coincidentally, the Kuomintang received aid from the USSR in their struggle against the Imperialists, and from Imperial America for their struggles against both Communists and Imperialists. There were repeated attempts by Americans, such as James Forrestal of Standard Oil and Allen Dulles, to get Chiang Kai-Shek to stop all fighting against the Imperialists and instead focus all of their efforts against the Communists. Although the Kuomintang did do this to an extent, hoping that the Communists would be weakened by the attacks on the Imperialists, the opposite turned out to be the case.[6]

Cold War

After the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945, the United States immediately commenced a joint invasion of China with the surviving Imperial Japanese to assist the Kuomintang in their extermination of the Chinese Red Army. From 1945 to 1949, the White House sent over two billion dollars to the Kuomintang, helped it train soldiers, and sent one hundred thousand American troops to China to help destroy the Red Army. Despite this, hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the Kuomintang forces,[4] including later a vice president of six years,[7] defected to the Communists because of the Kuomintang's rampant and blatant corruption, which was partly fueled by the neoimperialist money which flowed freely to it after the war.[4] The conditions in Kuomintang combat units and induction centers were terrible.[8] It eventually lost control in mainland China and mostly retreated to Taiwan where, through various acts of terrorism,[9] it proceeded to massacre 28,000 civilians in its takeover of the island.[4] Other surviving Kuomintang forces would go on to grow or deal opium in places such as Burma and Thailand.[10] Chiang Kai-Shek's régime, based in Taiwan, was recognized by the United States, and most of the rest of the world, as the only legitimate government of the nation of China until after his death.[4]

The Kuomintang also depended on some ‘former’ Imperialists to provide both military and technological support,[11] though cultural differences sometimes complicated these relations.[12] They enlisted some eighty (former) Imperial Army officers to train the ultranationalist troops for a potential assault on the PRC.[13] The Kuomintang consulted Japanese anticommunist Nabeyama Sadachika for expert advice on how to suppress of communism and looked to him and his group to influence the Japanese politico-economic elites.[14]

Ideology

Although the party was always fundamentally anticommunist, its politics were relatively diverse before 1927. The right wing aligned with Chiang Kai-shek, whereas its left wing aligned with Wang Jingwei, who was less unwilling to cooperate with the Communists at that time. After the party purge of 1927 however, the ‘left wing’ designation only grew more meaningless, though strategic differences between the two wings persisted. Wang's implementation of fascism in Nanjing only eroded whatever left-wing credibility that his faction had left, and by the time he officially resigned from the Kuomintang in 1935, Chiang Kai-shek's influence in the party was secured.[15]

The two most influential fascist factions in the party were the Blue Shirts, who were more militant in their background, and the CC Clique, who were more bureaucratic in theirs. Both claimed to be ‘revolutionary vanguards’ more radical than the rest of the Kuomintang and wanted the party to head a ‘revolution’ based on Sun Yat-sen's Confucian developmentalism and Chiang Kai-shek as China's head of state.[16]

They argued that the scientific socialist concept of class struggle was outdated and alien to Chinese life. Like the European Fascists, they promoted class collaboration instead, often by appealing to Confucianism.[17] They claimed that the ‘true’ subject of China's revolution was neither the proletariat nor the peasantry, but instead ‘an awakened nation bound together by Confucian culture.’[18]

References

  1. "Kuomintang". Archived from the original on 2004-02-05.
  2. Kominsky, Morris (1970). "V". The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars. Vol. I. Boston: Branden Press, Inc. pp. 337–9. 8283-1288-5. {{cite book}}: External link in |sectionurl= (help); Unknown parameter |sectionurl= ignored (|section-url= suggested) (help)
  3. Clinton, Maggie (2017). "1". Revolutionary Nativism: Fascism and Culture in China, 1925–1937. Durham and London: Duke University Press. p. 24. ISBN 9780822363620. LCCN 2016043541.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Price, R. "Maoist China".
  5. Kominsky, Morris (1970). "V". The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars. Vol. I. Boston: Branden Press, Inc. pp. 340–1. 8283-1288-5. {{cite book}}: External link in |sectionurl= (help); Unknown parameter |sectionurl= ignored (|section-url= suggested) (help)
  6. "Working With Chiang Kai Shek". Archived from the original on 2010-01-18.
  7. Kominsky, Morris (1970). "V". The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars. Vol. I. Boston: Branden Press, Inc. p. 346. 8283-1288-5. {{cite book}}: External link in |sectionurl= (help); Unknown parameter |sectionurl= ignored (|section-url= suggested) (help)
  8. Kominsky, Morris (1970). "V". The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars. Vol. I. Boston: Branden Press, Inc. p. 367. 8283-1288-5. {{cite book}}: External link in |sectionurl= (help); Unknown parameter |sectionurl= ignored (|section-url= suggested) (help)
  9. Kominsky, Morris (1970). "V". The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars. Vol. I. Boston: Branden Press, Inc. pp. 341–3, 345. 8283-1288-5. {{cite book}}: External link in |sectionurl= (help); Unknown parameter |sectionurl= ignored (|section-url= suggested) (help)
  10. Kominsky, Morris (1970). "VI". The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars. Vol. I. Boston: Branden Press, Inc. pp. 408–10. 8283-1288-5. {{cite book}}: External link in |sectionurl= (help); Unknown parameter |sectionurl= ignored (|section-url= suggested) (help)
  11. Kushner, Barak (2015). "4". Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 191. ISBN 978-0-674-72891-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |pageurl= ignored (help)
  12. Kushner, Barak (2011). Adam Clulow (ed.). Statecraft and Spectacle in East Asia: Studies in Taiwan-Japan Relations. New York: Routledge. p. 125. ISBN 978-0-415-59190-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |pageurl= ignored (help)
  13. Kushner, Barak (2015). "5". Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-674-72891-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |pageurl= ignored (help)
  14. Hofmann, Reto (2020). "What's Left of the Right: Nabeyama Sadachika and Anti-communism in Transwar Japan, 1930–1960". The Journal of Asian Studies. The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 79 (2): 403–427. doi:10.1017/S0021911819000688. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |year_published= ignored (help)
  15. Clinton, Maggie (2017). "1". Revolutionary Nativism: Fascism and Culture in China, 1925–1937. Durham and London: Duke University Press. pp. 29–30. ISBN 9780822363620. LCCN 2016043541.
  16. Clinton, Maggie (2017). "1". Revolutionary Nativism: Fascism and Culture in China, 1925–1937. Durham and London: Duke University Press. p. 30. ISBN 9780822363620. LCCN 2016043541.
  17. Clinton, Maggie (2017). "2". Revolutionary Nativism: Fascism and Culture in China, 1925–1937. Durham and London: Duke University Press. pp. 72–76. ISBN 9780822363620. LCCN 2016043541.
  18. Clinton, Maggie (2017). "2". Revolutionary Nativism: Fascism and Culture in China, 1925–1937. Durham and London: Duke University Press. p. 80. ISBN 9780822363620. LCCN 2016043541.