Part one

In the early 1930s, Mao Tse-tung’s rose to power with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Mao and his CCP party were working very hard to win the support of the people. However, most of the people were the peasants. Statistically, about 70 percent of the population was made up of the peasants who included tenants and agricultural workers, 20 percent was made up of the middle peasants who tilled their own lands and the rest 10 percent was made up of the landlords and usurers. The 10 percent also included the tax collectors, rich peasants, exploiters and militarists (Johnson 32). Thus Mao knew that controlling the peasants was the key to controlling china. He thus devised some strategies to help appeal to the peasants. The CCP recognized that the peasants were the key to a successful revolution. The peasants would make good soldiers to help expel the foreigners from china.

A major strategy used was the lands reforms. Mao had the view that a successful revolution would only be possible if the estates of the landlords were confiscated and the democratic demands of the peasantry met. The predatory landlords were seen to be oppressing the tenants by asking for rents. Mao promised free land to the peasants. Land was taken from the rich landlords and divided among the peasants. This move was not only meant to appeal to the peasants but also to cripple the rich who would have opposed Mao (Snow 58). The peasants became very passionate about Mao and this fed the war to revolution.

Another strategy used to appeal to the peasants was the policies towards women. A good example was the marriage law which banned bigamy. In addition women were also allowed to do jobs previously done by men only. As result most of the women supported the CCP especially the peasants. The CCP also used propaganda. A good example was the long march. Mao marched 100,000 men over 3000 kilometers (Esherick, Paul, and Andrew 20).The men were fighting a guerrilla campaign as they marched. They also spread Communist ideas to workers working on the lands. Though Mao’s red army lost almost 90 percent of its men, it was a successful propaganda. By the mid 1930s, everyone had heard about the march and the new leader of CCP Mao Zedong (Snow 51).

Another strategy applied by the CCP to appeal to the peasants was education. For the first time, education was brought to millions of people and it became very popular. Most of the people were illiterate since literacy was a domain for the elites and scholars. CCP moved in and simplified the written characters making education available to all.

The CCP had a revolutionary strategy to be carried out in the country side where most of the peasants resided. The communist ideology s propagated by the CCP was equality for all. The party recognized the revolutionary power of the peasants (Johnson 35). Thus, they initiated policies to make all people children and adults alike equal. The idea was to overthrow the rich peasants together with the landlords who owned and controlled land. The land was to be divided among the peasants. This met the democratic demands of the peasants.

The CCP recognized that the peasants were the most oppressed in China and thus pursued to use them in the revolution. Economically, the peasants owned nothing. They were tenants and worked at the farms of the landlords. With policies such as land reforms, women policies, and education, the CCP met the demands of the peasants. All these policies were specifically meant to meet the interests of the peasants so as to appeal to them to support the revolution. The CCP recognized the power of the many. The success of the revolution depended solely on the peasants support (Esherick, Paul, and Andrew 52). Thus all the policies generated by the CCP were meant to woe the peasants by engraving their interests in the policies. The peasants were happy that CCP cared about their well being in turn supporting the CCP ideologies. CCP gained popularity in the rural areas.

The peasants specifically supported the CCP because the policies generated by CCP reflected their interests. Policies such as land reforms gave the peasants free land. In addition, oppression against women such as bigamy was abolished by CCP.  Mao dedicated his life in developing the economies of the rural areas. Though his policies were mainly meant to help the peasants and oppress the rich who could have opposed him, he gained popularity in the rural areas. He acquired soldiers though untrained. In the long march, Mao marched 10,000 men over 3000 kilometers (Snow 64). These men were peasants who had joined CCP in the revolution.

Ideally, the peasants could not fail to support the CCP after all the policies Mao had promised to initiate to their interests. Though some of the policies were just empty promises, the peasants still supported CCP with the hope that after the revolution, the promises would be fulfilled. The Communism ideologies advocated by the CCP were very appealing to the peasants.

 Part Two

When Japan invaded China, the resistance war broke out.  The war ran for the years 1937-1945. The war is among the greatest upheavals in the history of china. It was a time for people to sacrifice and be courageous but also a time of loss and suffering. Virtually all parts of the country were en gulfed in the war. Most of the Chinese major cities had been occupied by the Japanese and the national government had been moved inland (Boyle 20). Millions of people ran away from their homes. At the end of the war, millions of soldiers and civilians had lost their lives.

The resistance left the society devastated. There were great variations in the regions. The CCP took this as the pre-condition to launch their new society though Mao later described it as “blank and poor”. The war gave the CCP the needed tool to launch a new vision. It also gave the CCP the tool to get people behind their ideologies. By the end of the war, CCP came to power hardened and ready to face GMD.

When the war started, the Chinese were not shocked because the threat had been growing for years. However, the scale of attack was shocking. The Japanese attacked all regions. The Japanese fought very fiercely using bombs. The ongoing onslaught made the Chinese more patriotic (Boyle 34). Patriotic slogans which reflected the feelings of the masses came to the top. A few months into the war patriotism was transcended into localism, regionalism and familism for the first time. The Chinese viewed the war as a race war where they were being attacked by a race which viewed itself as above them.

During the war, the CCP and the Chinese nationalist party came together to fight against the invader. They formed the united front. However, in the midst of this united front, both the communists and the Kuomintang were looking for territorial advantage in the parts of China not occupied by the Japanese. In 1938, the uneasy alliance between the two parties started to wane off mainly because the communists were aggressively expanding their military strength. This was done through absorbing the Chinese forces behind the enemy force. The soldiers were forced to switch their alliances to CCP or risk being labeled as collaborators.

At first, the war led to the parties coming together to defend their country. Both the CCP and the Kuomintang united against a common enemy. However, both were plotting to emerge leaders at the end of the war. Inside the Japanese-Chinese war was a civil war between the parties. At early 1941, the forces from both camps clashed leading to the end of the alliance. CCP was however defeated in the clash and its position weakened (Boyle 45).

The war weakened the Kuomintang party in that it gave the CCP a chance to absorb the experienced soldiers from the nationalist party. At the end of the war, the CCP emerged the winners. The party attributed its win to the war. The CCP had the time and opportunity to prepare themselves to take the country during the war. The social damage and the dissolution caused by the war was food to the CCP. The social elites had lost most of their wealth in the war. The warfare about classes in the society was no longer available (Boyle 80). The rich and the poor were now equal. CCP finally won partly because the nationalists were viewed as failures for failing to protect the country from the Japanese.

The war gave the CCP the structural assistance needed in the class struggle. The war brought people together in terms of wealth and patriotism. Though the war led to a lot of losses, there were things that never happened including loss of secure futures, loss of careers and unmade investments. The losses disappointed people and this enabled them to embrace communism.

The CCP and the Chinese nationalist party transformed in such disparate ways because of personal interests. Before the war, a civil war was in progress. The CCP was attempting to cause a revolution and introduce its communism ideologies. After the war started, the parties united against a common enemy. However, they never trusted each other. CCP for one was absorbing the nationalist’s soldiers in preparation of taking the country after the war (Esherick, Paul, and Andrew 60). Both of the parties were also fighting over ht control of the regions not already occupied by the Japanese.

The fight for the control of the nation was the sole cause of the disparities between the two parties. The parties could not even maintain unity against the Japanese. The control of the disoriented country from the Japanese invasion seemed very important than the fight against the common enemy. Though at the end of the war the CCP emerged the winners, a lot of losses and suffering would have been avoided had the two parties united strongly against the invader. However, self interest and hunger for power caused wrangles in the united front army.

Part Three

In 1949, Mao Zedong the leader of CCP announced the formation of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). This marked the end of the civil war between the CCP and the Kuomintang. Since the 1920s when the civil war started, conflicts broke out regularly between the two parties. Mao declared himself a dictator. The CCP moved very fast to make sure that they fully controlled China. No one had ever managed to control the whole of China fully in the past.

I agree with Joseph Esherick that the 1949 revolution simply replaced one form of domination with another. After Mao took power, he declared himself a dictator. The first thing the CCP did was to for the land reform law. Land was forcibly taken from the landlords and divided among the peasants. This was mainly meant to woe the peasants into supporting the CCP and at the same time cripple the rich who had the power and capability to oppose Mao. In addition, CCP introduced the bitterness meetings where the peasants were allowed to display any kind of anger against the landlords.

In most cases, the landlords ended up being beaten up and killed. Mao was specifically doing this so that the peasants could blame the rich for their problems instead of blaming CCP (Esherick, Paul, and Andrew 90).  The CCP also introduced the people’s courts where the ex-landlords were accused and tried. The accused landlords were always found guilty and executed. This was just to eliminate the elites who could oppose Mao. Mao had already dominated the peasants and was now working hard to dominate the social elites.

After the land reform, the peasants were never allowed to own land and make profits from it. The communist ideology was introduced. The peasants were forced to share the land between them. This idea was known as collectivization. People were forced to live in communes.  The communes were effective in that machinery such as tractors could be shared since the peasants could not have afforded it otherwise. In addition, the collectives allowed the CCP to control the peasants through keeping an eye on them and spreading propaganda. As part of the communist ideology, the people were to share everything meaning there was no private property.

After declaring himself a dictator, Mao burned the formation of any other political parties. The supporters of the already existing GMD were killed or sent to prison especially those in the cities. This was why the CCP worked hard to eliminate the social elites to prevent them from coming together and opposing him (Johnson 46). The Red Army was very tight in controlling the country and was very ready to eliminate anyone who dared oppose the CCP.  As this was not enough, all other organizations including religion were banned.  Nobody dared speak against CCP for fear of being labeled as counter-revolutionary.

In the 1950s, Mao introduced the thought reform. People were forced to study Mao’s ideas and any wrong ideas were shunned off.  This was a great deal of pressure and bullying. Stubborn people were sent back to the school to re-learn the ideas. This was a high level of domination to the people of China. Mao oppressed the same people he promised to protect when he took power.

Between the years of 1953-1957, the newly formed Peoples Republic of China was drawn to its first conflict internationally. They joined the war in Korea. The war turned to be very costly to the people of china (Johnson 49). In addition, the war came just as the economy of China was recovering. Many soldiers died in the war and the families were left without a breadwinner.

Though Mao dominated and oppressed the people of China, he also tried to improve the economy.  This was done through the 5 years plan. It started with the introduction of the new currency (yuan) (Esherick, Paul, and Andrew 112). The wages and prices of goods and services were fixed to reduce inflation. Heavy industries such as coal, oil and steel were improved. Russia being a major ally of China sent experts to China to help with the industries improvement. Millions of people went to the cities in search of jobs in the new factories leading to shortages of housing. Overall, the economy improved.

Since the end of World war one, the CCP had worked had to take control of China. Different tactics were used to appeal to the peasants who were many in population to support the revolution. Many promises were made to the peasants by the CCP to the peasants. When the Japanese attacked China, the CCP and the Nationalists formed a united army to fight against a common enemy. However, both parties were a lot plotting on how to take power after the war ends. The party’s personal interest led to the end of the united army. After the CCP took power with the revolution of 1949, Mao went ahead to dominate the people of China. The revolution was just a change in domination.

The CCP had recognized that the peasants were the most oppressed in China and thus pursued to use them in the revolution. However, after rising to power, some of the promises made were never fulfilled. The peasants were forced to communally share the land instead of using it to make personal profits. The Japanese left but the people were still not free from domination. The CCP killed anyone who opposed Mao. All other organizations including religion were abolished. In addition China became a one political party state since Mao could not allow other political parties to be formed. Again, those who supported the nationalist party were also killed. The social elites including the rich peasants and the landlords were blamed by the peasants for their problems and killed.

Work Cited

Boyle, John Hunter. China and Japan at war, 1937-1945: the politics of collaboration. Stanford University Press, 1972.

Esherick, Joseph, Paul Pickowicz, and Andrew G Walder. The Chinese Cultural Revolution As History. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006. Print.

Johnson, Chalmers A. Peasant nationalism and communist power: the emergence of revolutionary China, 1937-1945. Stanford University Press, 1962.

Snow, Edgar. Red Star Over China – The Rise Of The Red Army. Read Books Ltd, 2013. Print.

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