China's Inevitable Revolution: Rethinking America's Loss to the Communists

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China’s Inevitable Revolution

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China’s Inevitable Revolution Rethinking America’s Loss to the Communists Thomas D. Lutze

CHINA’S INEVITABLE REVOLUTION Copyright © Thomas D. Lutze, 2007. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-10: 1-4039-7977-4 ISBN-13: 978-1-4039-7977-3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lutze, Thomas D. China’s inevitable revolution : rethinking America’s loss to the Communists / Thomas D. Lutze. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-4039-7977-4 (alk. paper) 1. United States—Foreign relations—China. 2. China—Foreign relations—United States. 3. United States—Foreign relations— 1945–1953. 4. Cold War. 5. China—History—Civil War, 1945–1949. 6. China—Politics and government—1945–1949. 7. Liberalism— China—History—20th century. 8. Communism—China—History— 20th century. 9. China—Foreign relations—1912-1949. I. Title. E183.8.C5L88 2007 327.7305109’045—dc22

2007015274

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Scribe Inc. First Edition: December 2007 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

vii

A Note on Romanization

ix

Abbreviations

x

Introduction

1

1 The Failure of Mediation: The Hurley and Marshall Missions

17

2 The Battle Lines Are Drawn: U.S. Contention with the CCP to Win the Middle Forces, 1947

55

3 The Middle Forces in China’s Urban Turmoil, 1947

79

4 The Battle for the Middle Forces Peaks: The Domestic Factors, 1947–48

105

5 The Battle for the Middle Forces Peaks: The International Factor, 1947–48—Japan

127

6 America’s Loss: Clearing the Battlefield— And Parting Shots, 1948–49

157

Notes

195

Works Cited

237

Index

253


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been written without the encouragement and assistance of many people and institutions both in the United States and in China. Maurice Meisner and Thomas McCormick at the University of Wisconsin provided positive and helpful comments on the earliest version of this study many years ago, and continued to support the work in the time since. Other scholars who offered encouragement along the way include Larry I. Bland, Walter LaFeber, Thomas Paterson, Clara Sun, Edmund Wehrley, Odd Arne Westad, and Marilyn Young. My research in China depended on the helpful and generous guidance of Zhang Zhuhong of Peking University’s History Department. Interviews and access to archives were greatly facilitated by Qiu Renzong of the Chinese Academy of Social Science, by Huang Daolin and the Foreign Students Office at Peking University (PKU), and by liaison officials representing the central committees of several democratic parties: Wei Shiyuan and Du Ningwen of the Guomindang Revolutionary Committee, Jin Ruonian and Zhang Ronghua of the China Democratic League, Wang Jian and An Guiying of the China Democratic National Construction Association, and, in Shanghai, Jin Peiji of the Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy. Four other Chinese scholars, Li Yunfeng of Northwest University in Xi’an, Liang Yi of Beijing Union University, Lin Chun of the London School of Economics, and Jean K. M. Hung of the University Services Center in Hong Kong, either assisted me in arranging interviews or in pointing me to important archives containing rich materials for this study. Funding for my research in China was generously provided by the Committee on Scholarly Communication with China, the MacArthur Scholars Program at the University of Wisconsin (UW), the UW–Madison Department of History, and Illinois Wesleyan University. My good friends and colleagues Chuck Springwood, Irv Epstein, Mike Stein, and Dreux Montgomery have offered consistent encouragement in my efforts to bring this work to fruition, and Patra Noonan at Illinois

viii

Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s

Wesleyan has regularly come through with much needed assistance on technical issues and on the compilation of the book’s bibliography. I am grateful to my family, in particular my older children, Peter and Andrew, who provided me with companionship during my first year of research in China, and my younger children, Ariana and Nathaniel, who have been a big help in giving me the quiet time necessary to complete the manuscript. To all these people, I express my deepest thanks. But most especially, I want to thank my wife and partner Abigail Jahiel for her help with translations, her insightful comments and criticisms, her patience, and, most importantly, her caring support as I have worked on this project. The assistance of all these people, and many others not mentioned, has resulted in this finished product. Nevertheless, I alone assume responsibility for the arguments and conclusions of this study. Any errors are mine, not those of the people whose help I gratefully acknowledge here.

A NOTE

ON

R O M A N I Z AT I O N

Rendering Chinese names and phrases into a romanized form that is accessible to Western readers is rarely a simple proposition. At different times and in different places, different systems of romanization have been utilized. Over the past three decades, however, the Hanyu pinyin system has increasingly become the standard in Western scholarship. This book acknowledges this trend and in almost all cases uses pinyin. Because the subject matter of this study predates the introduction of pinyin, however, many of the English-language primary sources cited refer to people and places in romanized forms (oftentimes utilizing the earlier Wade-Giles system or some variant thereof) other than pinyin—forms that remain better known to most readers. Therefore, a few exceptions to the use of pinyin will be observed: Sun Yat-sen instead of the pinyin Sun Zhongshan; Chiang Kai-shek instead of the pinyin Jiang Jieshi; and Chiang Ching-kuo instead of the pinyin Jiang Jingguo.

In addition, several Chinese universities have officially maintained until today the earlier, historical rendition of their names in English. For example, Beijing daxue, or Beida, is officially Peking University in English, not Beijing University, and Qinghua daxue is rendered as Tsinghua University, not Qinghua University. Yanjing daxue, which was merged with Beijing daxue after 1949 and whose campus now is home to Beida, is rendered as Yenching University. Readers should note, too, that during the late 1940s, today’s capital of China, Beijing, or Northern Capital, was then referred to as Beiping (Peip’ing), or Northern Peace, because the capital of China at that time was Nanjing (Nanking), or Southern Capital. Where confusion might exist over the name of a person or place, the alternative romanization of the name will appear in parentheses following the name when it is first introduced.

A B B R E V I AT I O N S

Abbreviations appear from time to time throughout the text. The most common abbreviations include the following: CCP

Chinese Communist Party

DL

China Democratic League (China’s largest democratic organization throughout the late 1940s)

FRUS

Foreign Relations of the United States (U.S. State Department publication of embassy correspondence with Washington)

GMD

Guomindang (Nationalist Party)

GMDRC

Guomindang Revolutionary Committee (a democratic party of Guomindang members in opposition to the rule of Chiang Kai-shek)

PCC

Political Consultative Conference (the first PCC was convened January 1946; the “new” PCC was convened in September 1949)

PLA

People’s Liberation Army (military force commanded by the CCP)

PPC

People’s Political Council (Guomin canzheng hui; formed in 1938, a wartime advisory body to the Nationalist Chinese leadership that included, for most of its decade of existence, both middle-force democrats and representatives of the CCP) Selected Works, Mao Zedong

SW

INTRODUCTION

It is one thing to uphold the peoples of the world against the imposition of an aggressive tyranny, but it is a very different thing to uphold every rotten, reactionary regime against its own people merely because it happens to be anti-Communist. —John Cabot U.S. Consul General at Shanghai February 6, 19481

New Year’s of 1947 rang out the old and ushered in the new for U.S.

foreign policy toward China. Ever since 1944, Washington had nurtured hopes that a unified China under a coalition government would emerge from World War II to control and police the East, defending American interests while containing the Soviet Union.2 Now, those dreams were being dashed by events in China’s escalating civil war. American attempts to establish such a coalition government had focused up to this point on securing the participation of both of the two main antagonists in Chinese politics, the Nationalists (or Guomindang [GMD]), led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), and the Communists (CCP), led by Chairman Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung).3 President Harry S. Truman had entrusted this important undertaking to one of the most capable men he could find, no less a figure than General George C. Marshall. Having just returned home in late 1945 from his duties as U.S. Army chief of staff during World War II, Marshall received the call from Truman to repack his bags and head to China to broker peace and unity between the two combatants. But by January of 1947, the Marshall Mission had completed more than a year of mediation efforts with little to show for the endeavor. The level of conflict between the

2

C H I N A ' S I N E V I TA B L E R E V O L U T I O N

Nationalists and the Communists–and the intransigence of their political positions—had so frustrated the general that, by late 1946, he decided to call it quits. As Marshall prepared for his January 8 return to Washington to assume his new duties as secretary of state, he bequeathed both to China and to the Truman administration his mission’s “Final Statement.” Marshall’s political solution to China’s malaise lay in a program candidly described by the State Department two years later as “the building up of the liberals” to provide “the best defense against Communism.”4 His hope was that these liberals could serve as a lever for the reform of the corrupt and authoritarian Nationalist Party, a catalyst for change that would rekindle the popular support and legitimacy the GMD had briefly enjoyed following the defeat of Japan, but that had eroded so rapidly in the ensuing months. Although Marshall’s plan included the participation of the Chinese Communist Party in the reformed government—European experience to this point, particularly in France and Italy, suggested that Communists were deradicalized by their activity in coalition governments—the general was nevertheless willing to proceed without Communist cooperation, if necessary, in order to achieve his primary domestic objective for China: liberal reform of a Nationalist-led government that would be friendly to the United States. He fully expected that his “frank statement” would “arouse bitterness” among both the “Kuomintang (Guomindang) reactionaries” on the right and the “extreme Communists” on the left.5

T HE N ATURE AND H ISTORY OF THE M IDDLE F ORCES IN C HINESE P OLITICS The liberals, Marshall recognized, stood as a middle force—often referred to as the “Third Force”—between the two main combatants. For nearly twenty years, there had existed in China a loose amalgam of political groups and individual activists who consciously attempted to carve out a space for themselves between the Chiang Kai-shek–led factions of the Guomindang on the right and the Communist Party (CCP) on the left. What distinguished these forces as “liberals” or “democrats” was not necessarily any strong philosophical commitment on their part to Europeanstyle individualism, but rather their political demands for liberty, especially for civil rights, and for some form of multiparty rule.6 The middle forces were differentiated socially from both the GMD’s right-wing and the CCP’s left-wing forces. The right-wing groups won

INTRODUCTION

3

the support of two main elements, the wealthiest of the rural elites and the urban-centered “big capitalists.” These “big capitalists” were those with the largest holdings, including both those known as “compradors” for their ties to foreign financial interests and those known as “bureaucrat capitalists” for their ties to Guomindang political elites. The power of the latter was concentrated in the hands of what was referred to in China as the Four Big Families—Chiang, Song, Kong, and Chen—all members of the top echelon of the GMD.7 The Communist left wing drew general support from urban workers and rural peasants (especially poor peasants and hired farm laborers). By contrast, these middle forces were based among students, teachers, professionals, and certain small- and mediumsized elements of the business classes.8 The prominence Marshall accorded to the middle-of-the-road liberals was not simply the product of his, or America’s, self-delusion. Indeed, the imprint of the middle forces on Chinese politics was deeper than their numbers would suggest, and their track record gave promise of their ability to constitute a force to be reckoned with, not a mere will-o’-the-wisp, as later scholars concluded.9 In response to the Japanese invasion of Northeast China in 1931, for example, when Communists were regrouping in the countryside in the aftermath of Chiang Kai-shek’s bloody suppression of their urban organization, the middle forces orchestrated a remarkably broad and effective opposition to the GMD’s nonresistance policy to Japan in cities across China.10 These efforts were in no small way responsible for the CCP’s embrace of an anti-Japanese united front in 1934–35.11 Throughout the war years that ensued, the democrats actively spoke out and lobbied for the GMD and CCP to maintain unified resistance. As the end of the war approached, the democrats championed the call for a coalition government. In pursuance of that goal, they pressed for the convening of the first Political Consultative Conference (PCC) to bring together all political forces in China for talks aimed at the creation of a new, constitutional regime. In January 1946, under Marshall’s aegis, the PCC successfully negotiated a truce between the Nationalists and Communists and established principles for forming the new government. Delegates representing the “democratic parties and individuals” of the Third Force actually outnumbered both the Nationalist and Communist delegations at the PCC deliberations.12 Although the negotiated agreements were soon scuttled as civil war intensified, the middle forces continued throughout 1946 to mobilize massive opposition to the domestic conflict and to press for adherence to the principles agreed upon at the PCC. Despite some divisiveness among the middle forces that arose just

4


before Marshall’s departure over participation in Chiang’s controversial “National Assembly,” the democrats nevertheless continued to organize political and social movements in urban China throughout 1947 and 1948. Marshall’s directive to encourage “the assumption of leadership by the liberals,”13 therefore, was indeed rooted in Chinese political reality. But China’s political reality was exceedingly complex. As Marshall had predicted, his new policy did indeed arouse both bitterness and scorn from the Guomindang right-wing factions and from the Chinese Communist Party on the left. While the GMD reactionaries expressed their opposition largely through silence and stubborn inaction (it was best not to be too vocal in their disagreements with their patrons), the CCP revolutionaries were not so reticent. From the Communist perspective, U.S. talk of democracy and governmental reform at the beginning of 1947 was only so much deceptive verbiage, fabricated to hide America’s “imperialist” aims for China. During the Marshall Mission, U.S. armed forces remained deployed on Chinese soil. Massive amounts of U.S. aid fueled Chiang Kaishek’s military machine in an increasingly bloody civil war. In late 1946, American and GMD negotiators concluded a “Sino-U.S. Treaty of Commerce,” which granted special and extensive economic privileges to U.S. interests in China. This treaty was followed in turn by the signing of the “Sino-U.S. Air Transport Agreement,” granting American aircraft rights to fly, load, unload, and transship anywhere in China, and the right for U.S. military aircraft to land on Chinese territory. Marshall even supported Chiang Kai-shek’s convening of a “National Assembly” to write a new constitution for China—even though the “National Assembly” violated, in the eyes of many, the PCC agreement brokered by Marshall himself by failing to include not only the Communists but a number of democratic parties as well. All these actions were taken by the CCP as proof of American duplicity during the Marshall Mission. These factors alone were enough to arouse, at minimum, Communist charges of hypocrisy in response to Marshall’s new policy of liberal-led democratic reform. But there was more: the CCP, at that very moment, was launching a new policy initiative of its own to win over to the Communist side the very same middle forces that Marshall hoped to mobilize. According to Communist analyses, New Year’s of 1947 was witnessing significant changes not only in U.S. policy, but also in the broader domestic and international situation. The roar of the civil war and the rumblings of the Cold War reduced the prospect of negotiation in China; what increased was the prospect of revolution. Although the Communists had long recognized the importance to their side of forging ties with the middle forces and thus continued to promote the concept of coalition

INTRODUCTION

5

government, the possibility of a final showdown over the seizure of state power raised the stakes.

1947: T HE N EW S IGNIFICANCE OF THE M IDDLE F ORCES TO THE C HINESE C OMMUNISTS The intermediate elements in this “War of Liberation” would assume a new significance for the CCP for several reasons. First, across China, in cities under GMD control, massive student demonstrations were breaking out at that very moment—protests that would involve an estimated 500,000 anti-American activists, mostly middle forces. The demonstrations were sparked by the Christmas Eve rape of Peking University student Shen Chong by U.S. marines.14 The CCP saw in such outbreaks of struggle among radical and liberal students the opportunity to destabilize the Nationalist government from within its own strongholds;15 Mao himself would soon declare these militant protests as the opening of a second, urban front in the civil war.16 Second, although the potential for the Communist seizure of cities in the civil war remained on the horizon, the CCP still had its sights set on the urban areas. Chiang’s fall military offensive in North and Northeast China, though still underway, was beginning to weaken. Overextended and losing morale, the GMD Army was showing signs of vulnerability that encouraged the CCP leadership to begin thinking in terms of increasing military counterattacks on the enemy’s weak positions, leading eventually to the taking of larger towns and cities. The party’s experience in the administration of the northern city of Zhangjiakou (Kalgan) during 1946 had proven the necessity of cooperation from progressive intellectuals and technical experts from among the middle forces.17 Finally, Chinese Communist assessments of the international situation stressed the need to win over the middle forces. The New Year’s publication of a significant theoretical statement by CCP information chief Lu Dingyi heralded the party’s new analysis of the potential for revolution throughout the world. It emphasized in particular the need to “unite all democratic forces,” including various classes—even the “patriotic and peace-seeking elements of the bourgeoisie”—in the struggle against “U.S. imperialism,” which now had replaced fascist Germany and Japan as the principal enemy of the world’s peoples.18 Lu appeared to be outlining a new Communist-led international united front, a postwar hybrid of the earlier “popular front against fascism” and the emerging “united front against imperialism.” Perhaps best described as a “united front against

6


reaction and American imperialism,” this strategic view assigned to the middle forces a prominent and pivotal role.

T HE B ATTLE

FOR THE

M IDDLE F ORCES

Thus it was that from early 1947 through 1948, two competitors, the United States (on behalf of the Nationalist government) and the Chinese Communists, found themselves for very different reasons vying for the affections of China’s middle forces. But this courtship was no passing fancy. The stakes were far too high. For the United States, a GMD that failed to embrace the reforms championed by the liberals would continue to lose legitimacy among the Chinese people and fail to bring the Communists under control; the long and patient American political, military, and economic investment in Chiang Kai-shek would come to naught. For the Communists, the failure to win the support of the middle forces might lead to the party’s political isolation and short-circuit the impending effort to move the revolution from the countryside to the city, a necessary development if the “new China” the CCP envisioned were to be transformed from a backward, agrarian society into a modern, industrial society. In short, the winner would gain a decisive advantage in the outcome of China’s tumultuous and bloody civil war. As confrontation replaced dialogue, the battle for the middle forces was the chief manifestation of U.S.-CCP struggle on the political front. It is this battle during these two pivotal years that this book sets out to chronicle. For all its significance, however, this political battle for China’s middle forces has received scant attention in most Western literature on this period. Several factors appear to account for this scholarly gap. First, the bulk of U.S. resource allocation in China during 1947–48 was in the form of military and economic aid to the Nationalists; the political program of organizing the liberals was left largely in the hands of Ambassador John Leighton Stuart and his consular staff, and it was their job to carry out the new policy equipped with little but Marshall’s directive itself. Second, this policy was launched with little fanfare and was drawn up only in the wake (in more than one sense) of the comparatively spectacular political failures of the mediation efforts of first the Hurley Mission (1945) and then the Marshall Mission (1946). Third, the policy was enunciated just as America was beginning to revamp its postwar East-Asian strategy; Japan, under U.S. Occupation, would soon replace China, in the throes of civil war, as America’s bulwark against Communist expansion in the region. Fourth, Chiang Kai-shek, in spite of his reliance on U.S. aid, never felt compelled

INTRODUCTION

7

to accommodate U.S. desires for a liberal-led reform of his regime; the Generalissimo was justifiably confident that his anti-Communism alone would continue to keep him well-supplied. And finally, in analyzing the Communist seizure of power, the significance of the unarmed and, to some, disorganized middle forces has appeared to pale in comparison with the agrarian revolution and its vast peasant army that swept through China in 1949. Yet the middle forces continued to play an important role in China from late 1945 onward, carrying out organized activities that increasingly coalesced around joint actions with the Communists. As the United States government began in 1949 to bemoan the outcome of the Chinese Revolution, it was lamenting a string of disappointments, not least of which was the utter failure of its most recent China policy: Marshall’s call to rely on the liberals. American hand-wringers and finger-pointers engaged in acerbic debates over just who was in fact responsible for America’s “loss of China.” While scholars have rightfully assailed the imperious attitudes of those in this debate who were presumptuous enough to suppose that China had been “America’s” to lose in the first place,19 the fact nevertheless remains that America did indeed suffer a major “loss in China.”20 Considerable U.S. military, economic, and political assistance to Chiang Kai-shek had failed to stave off defeat at the hands of the United States’ worst cold war enemy—a Communist-led revolution. Particularly when looked at from the perspective of its impact on the subsequent U.S. decisions to draw the line against Communist expansion in Korea and then Vietnam, it becomes clear that the victory of the Chinese Communists in 1949 dealt the United States one of the sharpest setbacks in its international relations of the entire twentieth century.21 Recognition of the importance of the middle forces to both the United States and the CCP calls for a reconsideration of the factors contributing to this momentous outcome.

R ETHINKING A MERICA’ S L OSS

IN

C HINA

In rethinking America’s “loss,” it is necessary to evaluate why U.S. policy was so perfectly ineffective. The answer, detailed in this volume, lies in the inter-relationship between two separate, but convergent factors. First was the U.S. approach to China itself, which was motivated by the long-standing principle of maintaining the Open Door policy for U.S. interests. In the postwar period, defense of the Open Door policy translated into defense of the pro-American, anti-Communist status quo embodied in the

8


person of Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist government. This approach resulted in continual support for a dictatorial, inept, corrupt, and repressive regime that was determined to wipe out its opposition by pursuing a bloody and costly civil war. Consequently, the United States’ approach also resulted in the alienation of China’s democratic middle forces. The second factor was the Chinese Communist Party’s approach to the country’s postwar situation, which was informed and guided by the “antifeudal, anti-imperialist” revolutionary programme of New Democracy. As World War II came to an end, New Democracy in urban China translated into a call for coalition government, an end to dictatorship and one-party rule, opposition to foreign privilege and intervention, and the creation of a prosperous, democratic, and independent “new China.” This approach led to three key results: first, increased cooperation with other political parties in the initial quest for democratic governance and an end to civil war; second, denunciation, protest, and even armed struggle against the authoritarian regime in the name of democracy and a genuine peace; and third, increasingly vigorous condemnation of the U.S. presence in and policy toward China. Consequently, New Democracy also resulted in the attraction of the middle forces to the Communist side. America’s loss in this sense was but the result of the CCP’s victory.

T HE U NITED S TATES ’ S ELF -D EFEATING E MBRACE OF A NTI -C OMMUNISM In exploring more deeply the impact of U.S. policy on the middle forces, this study pays particular attention to the fundamental basis of American strategy as the Cold War broke out: anti-Communism. A common assumption of cold war ideology was that pro-democracy and antiCommunism were synonymous, flip sides of the same coin. But such was most surely not the case in China.22 The liberals of highest integrity in China were those committed to creating a democratic polity inclusive of all parties representing genuine political and social interests. Such was their vision of coalition government. Few of these urban democrats pretended to represent China’s peasantry (80 percent of the population), and many acknowledged the Communist Party’s broad support in the countryside and its superior right to represent the rural masses. How could these liberals maintain their commitment to democracy and at the same time exclude the Communists, as U.S. cold war policy increasingly dictated?

INTRODUCTION

9

Practical considerations were no less important to the middle forces than political integrity. If they sided with the United States in an “antiCommunist crusade,” Chiang Kai-shek would be further emboldened to pursue civil war rather than to negotiate a settlement with the Communists. The democrats abhorred civil war and its attendant suffering and dislocations. The long War of Resistance against Japan had been too costly already—domestic peace was paramount. The coup de grace driving the final wedge between the United States and Chinese democrats was the reversal of U.S. postwar policy toward Japan. Initial occupation policies had centered on the demilitarization and democratization of Japan—policies welcomed by Chinese patriots. But by 1947, fearing that the ongoing listlessness of the Japanese economy might foster Communist-led revolution from within, and confident that, with recovery, Japan could serve as a forward base against the Soviet Union in Asia, the United States set about the rebuilding of Japan. AntiCommunism thus meant that democracy in Japan would now be relegated to a secondary concern—at times flouted entirely—as economic growth, by any means necessary, became paramount. Anti-Communism also meant that the United States would now openly turn to prewar elites— elites often linked to Imperial militarism—to stoke the economy and to lead the postwar government in Japan. The middle forces were among the first in China to detect, publicize, and oppose the United States’ new orientation toward Japan. Having endured decades of humiliation and horror at the hands of Japanese imperialists and militarists, the middle forces were, like most of their compatriots, passionately nationalistic. The “reverse course” in Japan may have made sense to occupation and state department leaders, but in China, the breathing of new life into the former enemy only resulted in intensified fear and outrage. Many, many Chinese could only imagine that either World War III was imminent or that the conditions for a repeat of World War II were being created, especially as the Communist forces in China appeared to the United States to be gaining momentum. After all, as the reverse course was underway, the right-wing Japanese elites—now enjoying the favor of Washington—were reminding Americans that the 1937 invasion of China had been itself a noble anti-Communist mission, coming as it did on the heels of Japan’s signing of the Anti-Comintern Treaty, a pact with Germany and Italy to oppose and suppress socialist revolution. For the Chinese middle forces, it stood to reason that if a new anti-Soviet, anti-Communist war were to erupt, China would be the battleground. And even if war could be averted, China would still be unable to compete economically with a rebuilt Japan; China’s infant industries would be

10


defenseless, and the country would be relegated to a perpetual status as the grain and ore supplier for a reindustrialized Japan. None of this was acceptable. To the liberals of China, America’s anti-Communism was leading their country to disaster. Both in pursuing Marshall’s policy and in assessing its subsequent failure, U.S. officials in Washington never seemed to grasp that simple fact. Anti-Communism thus produced a spiral effect that doomed America’s policy to build up the liberals: support for Chiang and a revived Japan fed the reluctance of the middle forces to embrace U.S. policy; in turn, as the United States sensed this alienation on the part of Chinese democrats, it was more critical of their “ability to lead” and less inclined to follow through on its policy by providing them with the only support that would have been meaningful—an end to all aid to Chiang. As far as achieving its immediate objectives was concerned, Marshall’s new policy ended up as had its predecessors—a miserable failure. The contradiction between the patronage of democracy and the promotion of antiCommunism—a contradiction that cold war ideology would not, and perhaps could not, admit to—continued to condemn American efforts in China to bankruptcy. At the same time that American anti-Communism was alienating the middle forces, the Communist Party was striving to win them over with its own version of democracy for China, “New Democracy.” With its finger on the pulse of the democrats, the CCP had consciously incorporated many of the key political and economic concerns of these progressive activists in crafting a revolutionary programme that called for coalition government, national independence, land reform, and a system of production that benefited both labor and capital. It was a programme that was in most respects consistent with the hegemonic political thought at the time, the principles and policies established by Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan), the founder of the Nationalist Party and “father of the revolution.” The Communists consciously drew upon the parallels between New Democracy and Sun’s earlier political programme, known as the Three People’s Principles to attract the support of non-Communist democrats. At the same time, New Democracy, described as the first stage of a two-stage revolution, remained consistent with the CCP’s own longrange goals of socialism and communism. While some may have questioned or disagreed with the ultimate goals, New Democracy’s immediate vision for China nevertheless provided the democratic middle forces an attractive alternative to American anti-Communism. Most chose this Communist alternative, leaving the United States trying to figure out what went wrong.

INTRODUCTION

11

I NEVITABLE R EVOLUTIONS This conundrum for U.S. policy makers has not been unique to China. Historian Walter LaFeber analyzed U.S. relations with Central America during the 1970s in his path-breaking book, Inevitable Revolutions. He identified two themes that emerged from his study: first, the American fear of anti-capitalist revolutions, and second, the irony that the American system actually contributed to the outbreak of these revolutions.23 In fleshing out these themes, LaFeber noted that Central America’s historical experiences had created associations of capitalism with local oligarchs and militarists who were supported by U.S. policies and armies;24 furthermore, he argued that the United States’ efforts to protect its interests resulted in Washington’s “predetermined” proclivity to side with the status quo rather than risk the instability of radical, revolutionary change.25 But revolutions served a fundamental political role in Central America: in the absence of any system of democratic elections, revolutions became virtually the sole means by which power was transferred and needed changes brought about.26 In short, revolutions were inevitable. The choice facing the United States, LaFeber concluded, was whether it “would work with those revolutionaries to create a more orderly and equitable society, or whether . . . Washington officials would try to cap the upheavals until the pressures built again to blow those societies apart with even greater force.”27 The United States consistently chose the latter course of action. The parallels between U.S.-Central American policy in the 1970s and U.S. policy in China during the late 1940s, while not perfect, are nevertheless striking in several regards. First, by that time, historical experiences had created reservations about capitalism among the Chinese that were similar to those found among Latin Americans. As capitalism expanded in China during and after World War I, labor struggles became widespread and militant, often targeting foreign capitalists (the British and Japanese, in particular) who controlled many of the growing commercial and industrial enterprises. These labor movements became intimately connected with political efforts to launch a national revolution. Moreover, foreign capital typically aligned itself with regional warlords, contributing to the bloodshed and disunity in China. The situation had led Sun Yat-sen to advance an economic policy that sharply limited the scope of private capital, opting instead for a system of commerce and industry under state management.28 During the following years, many activists in China—not just Communists—expressed their determination to establish an economic system that would eliminate gaps between the rich and poor,29 and by the mid-1940s, even those who embraced American-style

12


democracy nevertheless preferred the Soviet economic system. As the liberal China Democratic League’s Political Report of 1945 put it, “In order to create a Chinese-type democracy, . . . we should adopt Soviet economic democracy to enrich British-American political democracy.”30 Democracy, however, proved elusive in China, just as in Central America. Chinese political transitions since the late Qing dynastic period had come about through revolutions and counter-revolutions—with force of arms, not elections, determining the outcomes. Although at the end of World War II the democrats in China wanted to alter that tradition and pursue peaceful change, more powerful forces in the country—especially the Nationalists, who controlled the government under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek—remained committed to suppressing their main opposition, the Communists, primarily by military means.31 As the CCP answered with its own armed response, the United States, as it would later choose to do in Central America, opted to support the status quo—Chiang’s Nationalist regime—rather than take its chances weathering the instability that might accompany the overthrow of the old order. In the case of China, while U.S. intentions to urge reform on the Nationalist government may have been entirely genuine, defense of the status quo that Chiang embodied nevertheless represented Washington’s preferred option in response to three overriding concerns: first, Chiang provided the United States with its most likely assurance of stability, even if it was tenuous; second, he offered the most loyal defense of U.S. strategic and economic interests; and, third, he personified the strongest opposition to Communism. America’s consistent defense of the status quo, based increasingly on anti-Communism, proved to be decisive in U.S. policy-making during the Chinese civil war. The repercussions for Washington were shattering. Confident of U.S. support, Chiang scuttled a promising peace process, pursued his military solution, resisted governmental reform, and, in all these actions, isolated himself from the democratic middle forces. The result was pivotal: these democrats, who would have been necessary participants in the creation of a new coalition government—the one form of government that might have staved off a revolutionary seizure of power—were driven away. In evaluating this key issue of coalition government, it is possible to argue that there may have been an opportunity for a different resolution of China’s domestic conflict, an outcome other than a Communist-led revolution. The CCP’s need to build alliances with the middle forces led the party to consider seriously various scenarios of a coalition government until late 1948. But in reality, the possibilities for such a resolution were erased by the United States’ ongoing support of Chiang, support that fed

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the Generalissimo’s determination to fight the Communists to the finish. The longer the war went on, the stronger grew the military dominance and the political hegemony of the CCP. By early 1949, Communist victory in the Chinese Revolution had been assured, and Communist leadership of the new revolutionary state had been secured. Could the United States have followed a different course than that of supporting Chiang? It is not likely. Two scholars of the period, Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian, have assessed the possibility of the United States pursuing an alternative policy toward China during the civil war. Although their purpose was to address the question of whether or not harmonious relations could have been established between the United States and the Communist Party, their analysis nevertheless seems pertinent as well to the question under discussion here: the possibility of a nonrevolutionary outcome to the postwar conflict in China. Westad observed, Had the Truman administration ceased its military assistance to the GMD in the spring of 1946 and been able to force Jiang [Chiang] to shelve his plans for attacks on the CCP, then it is possible that the United States could have exploited the already existing frictions between the CCP and Moscow to improve its own relations with the Chinese Communists. But this line of reasoning implies that the Truman administration would have seen a reduction in Jiang’s power as in its interest (which it did not); that Jiang could be pressured by Washington to alter his basic objectives (which he could not); and that the president himself or his advisors would have viewed the CCP as a candidate for cooperation with the United States (which they did not).32

Chen Jian has similarly noted that “cutting off connections with the GMD would [have] require[d] the complete turnover of America’s China policy since the end of World War II,”33 a revamping of established practice that the United States never seriously considered. While America’s support of Chiang, therefore, fed his ambition to wipe out his Communist opposition by force of arms, the Communists, in response, positioned themselves as upholders of the peace process, portrayed Chiang as the instigator of armed conflict, fought government repression, espoused democratic governance, and rebuked the United States for its interference in China’s affairs and its rebuilding of Japan. In so doing, the CCP ultimately won the majority of the middle forces to its side. In a society already long torn asunder by social inequalities and abuses, the political polarization—enhanced by a U.S. policy driven by defense of the status quo within the context of cold war

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anti-Communism—rendered inevitable not only the Chinese Revolution, but its outcome as well. This inevitability was so much as acknowledged even by U.S. consular officials in China at the time. As early as January 6, 1947, just hours before Marshall boarded his plane to return to Washington, W. Walton Butterworth, Minister-Counselor of the U.S. Embassy, noted in a lengthy analysis sent to the secretary of state that there was little hope in China of preventing “Communist ascendancy.” “The record reveals no evidence,” Butterworth observed, “which suggest[s] that the right wing groups which now control the Kuomintang [GMD] have either the vision . . . or the will to take action which would end feudal controls and provide the opportunity for reform.” He concluded, “These groups, if left in unmolested control, will assuredly dig their own graves and prepare confirmation of the Communist thesis.”34 While in many ways prescient, Butterworth’s appraisal, however, suffered from one serious misapprehension: it chose to identify Chiang Kai-shek with the moderate reformers in the GMD, not with the right-wingers themselves. To serve its objectives in China, the United States continued to delude itself in spite of copious evidence to the contrary, that Chiang stood for democracy and against reaction. The democratic middle forces, however, entertained no such illusions about Chiang and his Nationalist party-state. Ongoing American efforts to back the Generalissimo—to urge reform, but only under his leadership—appeared to most of these liberals to be naïve at best, treacherous at worst. To them, the only hope for change short of revolution was Chiang’s ouster. By January of 1948, even one prominent GMD general would conclude, “Chiang and the CC Clique [the right-wing reactionaries] must go before a coalition government can be formed and the war ended. If the United States government understood the potential strength of the ‘democratic elements’ in China, . . . it would not support Chiang.”35 But the United States did continue to support Chiang. Even as the passing months increasingly revealed to policy makers in Washington that Chiang’s ruling cliques could not guarantee stability, the Generalissimo’s strenuous opposition to any coalition or compromise with the Communists continued to assure him the United States’ support. It was this reality that prompted even John Cabot, the U.S. Consul General in Shanghai and an otherwise outspoken defender of American foreign policy, to utter the words presented at the outset of this Introduction. If support of the Chiang dictatorship in the name of antiCommunism so frustrated Cabot, how much more did this policy arouse the ire and opposition of China’s democrats! While America’s ideology of

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liberalism may have initially offered the United States the upper hand in its battle with the Communists for the allegiance of the middle forces, its politics of anti-Communism soon eroded that advantage. By contrast, the Communists’ effort to embrace many of the immediate political demands of the democrats within their revolutionary programme of New Democracy ultimately overcame their initial ideological disadvantage and succeeded in winning over the liberals in their great majority. Documents from the U.S. government, the Chinese Communists, and the democrats themselves during this period reveal the story of this battle for the middle forces. These sources include long-available materials, such as U.S. State Department correspondence (compiled in the Foreign Relations of the United States collections and the China White Paper), the writings of Communist leaders like Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and newspaper editorials and articles covering key events—all of which contain rich, but previously underutilized information on the subject. More recent sources that have become available since the late 1980s add to this evidence. They include not only excellent secondary studies by Chinese scholars, but also newly published memoirs and primary documents from the archives of China’s democratic parties and the Communist Party. Several notable actors in the events of the late 1940s have also consented to being interviewed about their experiences. Together, these sources demonstrate a profound concern and active commitment by both the United States and the CCP to win the vital contest for the middle forces, despite the general neglect of this political battle in studies to date. The sources highlight the following key events in this battle that this study analyzes: the initial policy changes of both the United States and the CCP toward the middle forces at the beginning of 1947; the growth of the Anti–Civil War, Anti-Hunger Movement later that spring; the GMD’s suppression campaign against the liberal Democratic League in the fall; the convening of the GMD-dominated National Assembly and the illfated reform attempts in early 1948; and the outburst of broad, antiAmerican protest throughout May and June in response to the U.S. decision to reindustrialize Japan. While the mounting successes of the Communists on the military front and in the political battle to win over the middle forces resulted in the United States retreating to a “wait-andsee” approach to China, the CCP continued to press forward to expand and consolidate its gains among the liberals throughout late 1948 and 1949. These efforts culminated in a massive press campaign—a parting shot to the United States—in the weeks leading up to the October 1 proclamation of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, a

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campaign that lambasted America both politically and ideologically for its actions throughout the civil war. To understand the emergence of this political “hidden war” in early 1947, however, it is important first to grasp U.S.-China policy through 1946, the failure of which demanded a new approach from Washington.

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t the end of the Pacific War in 1945, China presented the United States with one of its most serious diplomatic challenges. In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proclaimed his vision of this EastAsian ally as one of the “Four Great Powers” of the postwar world (along with the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union) that would guarantee a lasting peace among nations.1 But an international role of this prominence and responsibility for China presumed its internal cohesion: a unified polity with a central government enjoying the legitimacy of popular support. As the Pacific War drew to a close, such cohesion within China rested primarily on the willingness of the country’s two main political forces—the Nationalist Party, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Party, led by Mao Zedong—to reach a modus vivendi. Achieving cooperation between the two groups would prove a true test of diplomacy, given the often acrimonious history of their relations.

H ISTORY OF R ELATIONS BETWEEN THE N ATIONALISTS AND C OMMUNISTS The Nationalist Party, or Guomindang (GMD) was founded in 1912 by Sun Yat-sen, the charismatic leader of the Revolution of 1911 that overthrew the last of the imperial dynasties, the Qing. Sun designed the Guomindang as the vehicle for establishing a unified, republican form of government in an independent and sovereign China. In its infancy,

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however, the GMD was feeble, and, facing the challenge of regional warlords, it was unable to assert its hegemony in Chinese politics. Hoping to win support from abroad for his fledgling political project, Sun turned to the world’s most powerful nations. But his requests for assistance were spurned. Most industrialized countries at the time openly embraced colonial expansionism. At the Versailles Peace Conference following World War I, they agreed to uphold Japanese colonial claims in China’s Shandong Province, to the dismay and outrage of many Chinese.2 Moreover, the imperialist powers preferred to align themselves in China not with a party seeking unification, but rather with one warlord or another, keeping China weak and divided. Ultimately, Sun appealed to Soviet Russia, a newly created revolutionary state that shortly after its founding in 1917, had projected good will in China by announcing its readiness to renounce the claims upon Chinese territory that the czarist empire had earlier imposed.3 By 1921, Sun’s nationalistic calls for a united China freed from foreign control had begun to resonate among Russia’s revolutionary leadership. Vladimir I. Lenin, the head of the Soviet state, was urging Communists around the world to pursue their shared goal of world socialism by extending support to revolutionaries in “oppressed countries”—particularly in Asia—to topple imperialism.4 Lenin had observed a link between capitalist colonial expansion and the prospects for revolution in the industrialized countries. Overseas colonies, he maintained, had enriched the economically advanced countries of Europe and America, allowing business elites to curb the revolutionary impulses of their domestic working classes by placating them with higher wages.5 But anticolonial demands for independence, such as Sun’s, could materialize into movements of national liberation, shaking the very foundations of international capitalism. Driven from their colonial sources of cheap raw materials, cheap labor, and superprofits, the imperialists, Lenin surmised, would have less freedom to co-opt the workers at home, and revolutionary fires within the imperialist countries themselves would be rekindled. Sun’s Nationalist Party embodied precisely the anti-imperialist potential that Lenin sought to foster and inflame. In the early 1920s, therefore, the Moscow-based organization of revolutionary parties, Communist International (or Comintern), sent advisors to Sun Yat-sen to assist him in the reorganization and strengthening of the Guomindang. They helped him to elucidate his revolutionary programme, known as the “Three People’s Principles,” to provide a vision of a future China based on nationalism, democracy, and a state-restricted capitalist economy. Simultaneously, the Comintern aided a small network of

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Marxists in China to form the Chinese Communist Party. By 1924, a united front between the two parties had been formalized, the “First United Front,” and Communists were actively working within the Nationalist Party. Plans were launched for a GMD military operation to proceed from South China and move northward—with CCP members playing a key role in arousing the common people along the way—to wipe out the warlords in a quest of national unification. Sun died in 1925, but the following year, his dreams of a “Northern Expedition” were realized. Thousands of troops, Nationalists and Communists together, set out from Canton under the military leadership of the young General Chiang Kaishek. Within six months, they had defeated over thirty warlords and had extended their control over vast expanses of China south of the Yangtze River. In coordination with the advance of the Expeditionary Army, workers led by the Communist Party seized control of Shanghai in March of 1927 and held the city in anticipation of the arrival of Chiang’s forces. When Chiang entered Shanghai in April, however, he double-crossed the Communists, setting a new trajectory for modern Chinese history. Chiang ordered his troops to open fire on the workers, who had been disarmed. He proceeded to launch a systematic and violent purge of Communists (and radical workers and peasants) known as the “White Terror,” which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives over the next several years.6 Communist organizations in the cities were destroyed, and those CCP members who survived the slaughter renounced the united front strategy, as they were forced to regroup in remote, mountainous regions of the Chinese countryside. Meanwhile, Chiang seized power from his erstwhile comrades within the Nationalist Party, those comprising the so-called “left-wing Guomindang.” He then consolidated his political supremacy in China by a combination of conquest and co-optation of the powerful warlords in the North. For most of the decade following this 1927 coup, the Nationalists bent every effort to wipe out the Communists in an ongoing civil war, initiating five major military campaigns between 1930 and 1934 against the Reds’ primary rural base area in South China’s Jiangxi Province. In the midst of this conflict, however, a significant new development arose: the Japanese Imperial Army launched an attack on Northeast China (Manchuria) on September 18, 1931. Within the Guomindang’s urban strongholds, patriotic demonstrations broke out, demanding that Chiang Kai-shek resist the Japanese instead of the CCP. The Chinese civilian protests grew to huge proportions after the Japanese proceeded to strike Shanghai in the middle of the night on January 28, 1932, with a massive bombing attack, and then followed their air raids with a marine invasion

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over the following days. Unwilling to confront the Japanese in the North while in the midst of his anti-Communist campaign in the South, Chiang ordered his forces not to resist the invasion. Nevertheless, his own Nineteenth Route Army, under the command of General Cai Tingkai, defied orders and valiantly fought off the Japanese forces for several weeks, earning the support and esteem of hundreds of thousands of Chinese both within Shanghai and throughout the rest of the country. It was within this early resistance movement against the Japanese invasion that the democratic middle forces ascended China’s political stage as effective leaders with a significant following. The democrats had actually undertaken their first organized political work in response to Chiang’s 1927 coup and the destruction of the united front; but in 1932, as leaders of these defiant, patriotic protests against the Japanese invasion, their influence in urban China expanded broadly and rapidly. These middle-class activists began to call for a new “government of national resistance” to Japan. To further their cause, they organized economic boycotts of Japanese goods. They formed civil rights organizations, demanding that the Nationalist government repeal the repressive laws forbidding free assembly, free speech, and free press—laws that hindered their anti-Japanese activism. Some patriotic industrialists even turned their production over to weaponry and engaged in sabotage, supporting covert operations aimed at destroying Japanese military targets.7 It was in this context that the Communist Party, and its Comintern advisers, began to rethink their 1927 rejection of the united front and to move in the direction of cooperation with all who would resist Japan.8 Though the GMD’s fifth encirclement campaign in late 1934 finally forced the Communists to retreat from their main rural base in Jiangxi, the CCP continued, during its legendary “Long March” of six thousand miles, to press for unified resistance to the Japanese. During the summer of 1935, before the remnants of its Red Army reached their destination of Shaanxi Province in the Northwest, the Communist Party issued its influential August 1 Declaration, calling on all political parties, social circles, and armies—no matter their past—to call a halt to civil war and resist Japan.9 By the end of the year, thousands of students who had been inspired by the declaration would launch the December 9 Movement to resist Japanese encroachment in China; throughout the following year of 1936, many thousands more, from all walks of life, would join the National Salvation Movement. A key development in late 1936 was the Nationalist government’s arrest and imprisonment of seven leaders of the National Salvation Movement, patriots who soon came to be known as the Seven Gentlemen

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Figure 1-A The “Seven Gentlemen”—democratic leaders of the National Salvation Association—upon their release from prison in the summer of 1937. Incarcerated by Nationalist authorities in late 1936 for their activism against Japanese aggression, the “Gentlemen” included the well-known female lawyer, Shi Liang (second from the left); banker Zhang Naiqi (third from left); lawyer Shen Junru (fourth from the left); and Li Gongpu (second from the right). Zhang and Shen would later become leaders of the Democratic League. Li would be assassinated by GMD agents in the summer of 1946.

(Qi Junzi).10 The arrests followed the publication of a statement by two of the seven, openly supporting the CCP’s call for a new united front of resistance. Among those impressed with the Communists’ stance and outraged by the arrest of the Seven Gentlemen were two of Chiang Kai-shek’s own generals, commander of the Guomindang’s Northeast Army, Zhang Xueliang, and commander of the Northwest Army, Yang Hucheng. Sent by Chiang to Shaanxi to liquidate the remaining Communists, General Zhang, a former warlord of the Northeast whose father had been assassinated by the Japanese, conspired with General Yang to launch a bold and spectacular move. Instead of fighting the Communists, they turned their guns around; breaking into Chiang’s command center in the predawn hours of December 12, they kidnapped the Generalissimo himself. During this famous “Xi’an Incident,” Zhang and Yang called in CCP representatives for several days of suspenseful negotiations. Ultimately, they secured

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from Chiang a promise to join with the Communists in a second united front, this time to resist Japan.11 To the relief of the middle forces, the two parties thus set aside the mutual hostilities that had resulted from a decade of bloody conflict—but only temporarily and partially. Throughout World War II, tensions remained, flare-ups broke out, and, as the last stages of the conflict drew near, the prospect for a renewal of large-scale civil war after Japan’s defeat loomed close on the horizon. As early as 1941, in the midst of the Chinese War of Resistance against the Japanese aggressors, Chiang Kai-shek famously revealed his true feelings about the Communists vis-à-vis the foreign invaders as follows: “You think that it is important that I have kept the Japanese from expanding all these years. . . . I tell you that it is more important that I have kept the Communists from spreading. The Japanese are a disease of the skin; the Communists are a disease of the heart.”12 To the consternation of the liberals, in the three years that followed, nothing appeared to alter Chiang’s sentiments. He remained determined to bring the CCP to its knees. From late 1944 until the end of the Pacific War, therefore, U.S. policy and the desires of the middle forces dovetailed, as America strove to head off the kind of conflagration within China that would leave the country weak and divided, unable to police the East, and—as the U.S. saw the situation amid the gathering clouds of the Cold War—hanging as a plum, “ripe for Soviet picking.”13 Thus it was that even as Japan was undertaking a massive offensive within China in the fall of 1944, the United States was undertaking a massive effort to mitigate the divisiveness between the Nationalists and the Communists, not only to unify Chinese military resistance to the Japanese, but also to stave off the instability and chaos of civil war.14 America initiated two separate attempts at mediation, the Hurley Mission, which lasted from September 1944 until November 1945, and the Marshall Mission of December 1945 to January 1947. Both U.S. mediation efforts were plagued by the contradictoriness of their two main goals: on the one hand, they were supposed to achieve a unified China, based on the participation of both the GMD and the CCP; on the other hand, they were to support Chiang Kai-shek to ensure the viability and longevity of his leadership and the predominance of his party in the governmental organs of power.15

T HE H URLEY M ISSION Soon after his plane landed in Chiang’s war-time capital of Chongqing, deep in China’s mountainous interior, Brigadier General Patrick J.

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Hurley—a tall, mustachioed ex-lawyer from Oklahoma—found himself in the midst of a gathering storm. The Japanese military was successfully pressing forward with its offensive through South China. Code-named ICHIGO, its three objectives included (1) wiping out Chinese air bases that put American bombers within striking distance of Japan’s home islands, (2) forging an inland supply corridor to Vietnam and Southeast Asia to circumvent American naval superiority in Pacific shipping lanes, and (3) cutting off the Nationalist government in Chongqing from China’s eastern seaboard.16 Against this backdrop, the simmering acrimony between Chiang Kai-shek and the commander of U.S. military forces in China, General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, was about to boil over into a major crisis, the resolution of which would put America on a path of support for Chiang that would have far-reaching consequences into the postwar period. The rancor between the Generalissimo and Stilwell stemmed from the latter’s long-standing aggravation with GMD corruption, bureaucratism, and foot-dragging in training and deploying an effective Chinese fighting force against the Japanese. Fueling Stilwell’s frustration was the fact that Chiang had assigned what crack troops he did have not to repel the Japanese, but instead to defend his own position in Chongqing and blockade the Communist base area in the Northwest. Stillwell’s well-known, derisive reference to the bald-pated Chiang as “peanut” reflected his frustration. Stilwell knew Chinese troops could become competent soldiers, but, as a “commander” with little more than advisory powers vis-à-vis the Generalissimo, he could not make the changes he saw as necessary within Chiang’s military establishment. From Chiang’s perspective, however, Stilwell’s acerbic criticisms constituted a disrespectful challenge to his military authority as “Generalissimo,” a challenge increasingly difficult to tolerate. Even less acceptable was Stilwell’s determination to equip and send into battle against the Japanese the very Communist forces that Chiang so deeply despised.17 When Hurley arrived, Stilwell was in the midst of an attempt to restructure the military command in China so that he himself could exercise sweeping power over all the Chinese armed forces in order to build up their military capabilities. For a few days in mid-September, with the support of President Roosevelt and General Marshall in Washington, it appeared that Stilwell could succeed. But Chiang forced a showdown. He fired off a cable to Roosevelt in which he accused Stilwell of attempting to undermine his authority as chief of state, and he then followed the accusation with the demand that Stilwell be relieved of command in China. Chiang’s message put Roosevelt in a difficult position. The president did

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not want to undercut Stilwell, but he also did not want to discredit his own broader effort to champion China’s right to sovereignty. Furthermore, to abandon Chiang might further discourage Chinese resistance efforts against Japan and simultaneously strengthen the morale of the Japanese. Ultimately, Roosevelt acceded to Chiang’s demand. In October, Stilwell was recalled to the United States.18 Stilwell’s departure signaled Washington’s unwillingness to jeopardize relations with Chiang Kai-shek. It is not surprising, therefore, that having been assigned to arbitrate the differences between the GMD and CCP,19 Hurley—who was befuddled by the Chinese language and understood little of the complexity of Chinese politics—consistently maintained that “the established policy of the United States is to prevent the collapse of the National Government and to sustain Chiang Kai-shek as president of the Government and Generalissimo of the Armies.”20 It was true that during a brief two-day visit to the Communist command center in the remote northwestern town of Yan’an not long after his arrival, Hurley had secured from the Communist leadership an encouraging proposal for the creation of a genuine coalition government replete with civil liberties in exchange for the integration of the Red Army into a central government command. But when Hurley, now having been named U.S. ambassador to China, returned to Chongqing to present the outline to Chiang, the Generalissimo summarily dismissed the concept of a coalition and joint military command. The GMD responded with a counterproposal that would have maintained its party control over the armed forces and over any moves to democratize China. The CCP found this formula unacceptable: the Communists would not budge from their demand for an end to the Nationalists’ one-party rule and for the establishment of a coalition administration as the prerequisite for democratic reform.21 Hurley responded by urging both sides to continue negotiations on “general principles” of unity. His efforts did in fact result in a proposal to convene a Political Consultative Conference that would bring together representatives of the GMD, CCP, independent parties, and those without party affiliation to consider how to move toward a constitutional government, how to unify China’s armed forces, and how parties other than the GMD could participate in the National government.22 Yet Hurley remained inclined to support Chiang’s position in these negotiations. As his own report on these talks concluded, “I am convinced that our Government [the United States] was right in its decision to support the National Government of China and the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. I have not agreed to any principles or supported any method that in my opinion would weaken the National Government or the leadership of

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Chiang Kai-shek.”23 Support for Chiang was the bottom line of U.S. policy during the Hurley Mission. In accord with this policy, America regularly refused throughout the final months of the war to accept Communist requests for aid to fight Japan; moreover, when the war at last ended, U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur issued General Order No. 1, instructing Japan to surrender only to Nationalist forces, not to Chinese Communist forces, in spite of the fact that in the last years of the battle for North China, the Communists had borne the brunt of Japanese attacks.24 This order resulted in Chiang subsequently issuing a truly remarkable postsurrender command of his own, unchallenged by the United States: the Generalissimo not only instructed Communist forces not to move into Japanese-held positions (this part of the directive was ignored by the CCP), but he also enjoined both the Chinese troops who had earlier capitulated to the Japanese and the Japanese forces themselves—the defeated enemy—not to lay down their weapons, but instead to continue to wage armed combat with any CCP units they encountered. It was not surprising, therefore, that in the immediate aftermath of the war, Hurley’s staff helped coordinate and provide the transport of five hundred thousand GMD troops to strategic locations throughout China to keep CCP forces in check. Hurley’s staff also oversaw the landing of more than fifty thousand American Marines during September and October, troops that not only disarmed the Japanese and prepared them for repatriation, but also secured the key cities, mines, and railroads in North China that were critical to the supply of the newly stationed Nationalist armies in the region.25 Furthermore, Hurley’s staff provided military equipment at levels sufficient to sustain the Nationalist air force and to outfit a thirty-nine–division army,26 and it secured substantial financial aid to maintain the Chiang Kai-shek government. All these actions took place during the very weeks that Hurley was conducting what was purported to be even-handed mediation in Chongqing (the “Chungking Negotiations”). But the one-sidedness was in fact so severe that during the talks, when —because of a recent rebuff by Soviet Party chief Joseph Stalin and because of temporary setbacks on the battlefield—the CCP was more willing than at any previous time to yield concessions, Hurley put no pressure on Chiang to display some flexibility in response.27 All this American support for Chiang served to foster in the Generalissimo a cavalier attitude toward compromise, an attitude that virtually doomed the mediation from the outset. Chiang’s inflexibility led CCP Chairman Mao Zedong to issue the following warning to his party:

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“You must never rely on negotiations.”28 Indeed, Mao had expressed his opinion, even before talks began, that “U.S. imperialism wants to help Chiang Kai-shek wage civil war and turn China into a U.S. dependency, and this policy . . . was set long ago. . . . In the past we have openly criticized and exposed the U.S. policy aiding Chiang Kai-shek to fight the Communists; it was necessary, and we shall continue to do so.”29 While the United States may not have wanted to foment civil war, its policy certainly encouraged Chiang to pursue that course. It would seem that the Communists had better reasons to gear up for war than to participate in the deliberations. Yet the leaders of the CCP were not convinced that they should entirely rule out the possibility of a negotiated settlement with the GMD.

C OMMUNIST R ATIONALES FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE N EGOTIATIONS Indeed Mao may have surprised many observers when he accepted the invitation to fly to Chongqing for the talks initiated by Hurley. If the issue of China’s political future had been solely up to the Nationalists, Mao asserted on October 17, civil war would indeed have been the only possible outcome of the talks. But he noted the following other factors that impinged on the situation and that could have resulted in the delay of civil war: (1) the increased strength of the Communist-led armed forces and local militias in the red “liberated areas,” (2) the demand for peace in Chiang’s “white regions,” and (3) the international situation. These latter two factors merit closer examination. The war with Japan had devastated China. Statistics from the years shortly after the conflict listed public and private property damage at more than fifty billion U.S. dollars (in 1949) and the death toll at more than fifteen million.30 The Japanese Army’s notorious “Three All Policy” (burn all, kill all, loot all), a scorched-earth strategy carried out from village to village in order to eliminate guerilla resistance, left deep scars over much of rural China. Millions were uprooted by war-related famine, by floods unleashed by Chiang in a vain attempt to slow the invading forces, and by the Nationalists’ draconian conscription practices. By 1945, China was a country exhausted by eight bloody years of misery, death, and destruction. The people wanted peace, not civil war. At the Chungking Negotiations, the Communists walked a tightrope, attempting to balance between two realities. They harbored no illusions about Chiang’s predilection to force them into submission militarily, but,

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at the same time, they understood the public sentiment for successful peace talks. Thus, they were determined not to endorse any settlement that would deny them entirely the fruits of their own struggle to that point—in particular, they would not forego the regional expansion of their base areas and the corresponding increase in troops under arms. Having learned their lesson in the bloodbath of 1927, the Communists would not allow themselves to be rendered helpless should civil war resume. But at the same time, they also took great pains to champion peace so as not to appear as the aggressor—the perpetrator of a highly unpopular civil war. Thus, in spite of the strong possibility of renewed conflict with the Nationalists, the Communists were willing to make substantial concessions31 to achieve their stated objectives of peace, democracy, and unity in the immediate postwar period.32 Of course, Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist Party faced similar constraints. In spite of his commitment to subjugate the Communists and in spite of the U.S.-provided military superiority over the Red forces that emboldened him to pursue a military solution, the Generalissimo could not afford politically to appear—either to his American benefactors or to the Chinese people—as a leader turning a blind eye to demands for peace and national unity. These were the considerations on both sides that lay behind the famous toast between the Nationalist and Communist leaders

Figure 1-B Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek toast each other as negotiations begins in Chongqing at the end of August, 1945.

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at the opening banquet of the talks in Chongqing, during which Chiang and Mao cordially exchanged pleasantries. In addition to domestic demands for peace, international factors also encouraged Mao to engage in the talks with Chiang. One such factor cited by the U.S. State Department was the August 14 signing of the SinoSoviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, in which the USSR pledged to give moral support and military aid only to the Nationalist government of China,33 thereby turning its back on the CCP. The Soviets were eager to secure their borders with China and to ensure the special privileges within China that they had been promised at the Yalta Conference in exchange for their commitment to enter the war against Japan. The snub by the Soviet Union that was embodied in the treaty raised concerns within the CCP that the party was now in a weaker position in terms of international support and that, therefore, joining the talks was imperative. The most important of these international factors cited by the Chinese Communists themselves, however, was the foreign support for the CCP, including the support, as Mao put it, of “Americans who sympathize with us.”34 This reference to American sympathizers suggests that Mao may have seen an opportunity to advance his cause against the Guomindang “reactionaries” and “U.S. imperialism” by utilizing not only those “democratic forces” from among the “popular masses,” but also those within the U.S. government itself.35 Years earlier, Mao had already distinguished himself as a successful political strategist by applying the Marxian philosophical concept of dialectics to the practical sphere, analyzing the economic and political “contradictions” in society that could be seized upon for the benefit of the revolution.36 During the war, for example, Mao acknowledged the contradiction among the imperialist nations themselves, asserting that in order to defeat Japan, China’s principal enemy, the CCP could temporarily align itself with the United States and other Allied powers. Now that the war was over, it appeared that Mao was attempting to utilize the contradictions he observed within the U.S. government itself to advance his cause. Such an approach was clearly evident in a policy directive issued several weeks earlier by the CCP Military Commission on July 7, 1945, marking the eighth anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the military clash on the outskirts of Beiping that had provided the pretext for Japan’s all-out invasion of China in 1937. Issued one month before the atomic blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria combined to bring about the surrender of Japan, the CCP directive

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demonstrated the party’s effort to take advantage of disagreements within American policy-making circles. In its opening paragraph, it stated, Ever since American Ambassador Hurley openly expressed his full support for Chiang and his refusal to cooperate with the Communists, our Party’s attitude toward the U.S. has been to oppose America’s currently mistaken China policy (supporting Chiang, opposing the Communists, and containing the Soviet Union); to oppose the imperialist elements within the U.S. government (such as Hurley), and to support those elements from among the progressives who feel the same way as the Chinese Communists (such as the six who were arrested37 and others); to criticize the policy of the American government that supports Chiang and opposes the Communists—and to demand a change; and to force the American government to reconsider its policy, by emphasizing especially that if the U.S. forces deployed against Japan are not coordinated with our forces, we will not be able to shorten the war and reduce casualties.38

It should not be forgotten that Communists internationally were still operating on the theoretical basis of the “popular front against fascism”— first elaborated in 1935 by Comintern spokesperson Georgi Dimitrov—a front that divided the world into antifascist, democratic forces on the one hand, and fascist, antidemocratic forces on the other. In this context, the fact that the Chinese Communists in mid-1945 would identify the United States as “imperialist” is perhaps more surprising than that they would seek democratic allies within the U.S. government. There were indeed U.S. foreign relations officials who sought some accommodation with the CCP. In February 1945, for example, the American Chargé d’Affaires in Chongqing, George Atcheson, had called for U.S. and GMD military and political cooperation with the Communists as a necessary measure to avoid civil war.39 Similar calls for cooperation were heard from members of the U.S. Military Observer Mission—the so-called “Dixie Mission,” sent in 1944 to the Communist “rebel” capital at Yan’an in Northwest China. This group of Americans was led by the colorful China expert Colonel David Barrett, and included such figures as foreign service officers John P. Davies and John S. Service. The Dixie Mission spent the second half of 1944 and early 1945 with CCP forces. The observers concluded that the Communists were effective in their guerilla operations against the Japanese and that, therefore, the CCP deserved U.S. aid and equipment.40 State Department officials at the Far East Desk in Washington tended to agree, seeking “flexibility” in China, not rigid support for a battered Chiang Kai-shek regime.41

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The “sympathetic” position was most clearly summarized by Atcheson in the following policy recommendation: A tremendous internal pressure for unity exists in China, based upon compromise with the Communists and an opportunity for self-expression on the part of the now-repressed liberal groups. . . . [By providing aid to the Communists], we would markedly improve the prestige and morale of these liberal groups, and the strongest possible influence would be exerted by us by means of these internal forces to impel Chiang Kai-shek to make the concessions required for unity and to put his own house in order. In addition, by a policy such as this, . . . we could expect to obtain the cooperation of all the forces of China in the war; to hold the Communists to our side instead of throwing them into the arms of the Soviet Union, which is inevitable otherwise in the event the USSR enters the war against Japan; to convince the Guomindang that its apparent plans for eventual civil war are undesirable; and to bring about some unification, even if not immediately complete, that would furnish a basis for peaceful development toward complete democracy in the future.42

It is clear that in addition to demonstrating concern for democracy, the American rationale for cooperation with the CCP also included a number of the following by-products salutary to U.S. interests: unified resistance to Japan, prevention of civil war, and preclusion of the Chinese Communists developing a closer relationship with the Soviet Union. While surely taking issue with certain objectives of the State Department as outlined in the summary, Communist leaders undoubtedly welcomed the overall impact of such recommendations. Implicit in the call for cooperation was recognition by the United States of the CCP’s military and political accomplishments, recognition that would only enhance Communist claims for legitimacy within China vis-à-vis the Guomindang. Also implicit was the vindication of the CCP’s international “united front” strategy: the proposal demonstrated that within the U.S. government itself, there were voices being raised for Chinese “democracy”—as opposed to “fascism.” In short, for the Communists, the Atcheson proposal crystallized a trend in the State Department distinctly different from the single-minded support of the GMD embraced by Ambassador Hurley. Despite Mao’s willingness to negotiate on the basis of such contradictions within the American government, he nevertheless remained, throughout the talks, skeptical of overall U.S. intentions. After all, the most visible of the “sympathizers” within the U.S. government—including Atcheson, Davies, Service, and of course Stilwell—had all been reassigned months earlier in favor of personnel friendlier to Chiang Kai-shek

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and more hostile to the Communists. The personnel changes reflected the fact that, from late 1944 through early 1945, Chiang had successfully orchestrated support within the Roosevelt administration for his own position, which argued that any effort to encourage the Communists with promises of U.S. aid would merely embolden them to resist GMD attempts to achieve unity. In its affirmation of Chiang as conductor, the administration relegated to second fiddle those in the State Department who argued that “flexibility” toward the Communists was the only lever to “impel” Chiang to embrace unity and “to put his house in order.” The arrangement did not bode well for American intentions in China.

W HOSE “U NITY ”? T HE C ONTRADICTION AT THE R OOT OF A MERICA’ S FAILED P OLICY The ultimate decision by Washington to support Chiang, however, must be looked at more closely, for the obvious contradiction of American policy—the contradiction between achieving participation by both the GMD and the CCP in a government of unity, and simultaneously providing massive support to only one of the two parties—was itself based on a deeper, less visible contradiction. This deeper contradiction was the discrepancy between Chiang Kai-shek and the U.S. State Department on the meaning of “unity.” No doubt both Chiang and the State Department sought to unify China at the end of WWII. But “unity” as defined by Chiang was nothing less than Communist submission to the Nationalists, militarily and politically.43 “Unity” for the State Department in late 1945 meant the creation of a pluralist polity, inclusive not only of the democratic middle forces but of the Communists as well, albeit as minority participants. However unrealistic either definition may have proved in implementation, at least each position embodied a practical and logical relationship between means and ends. If the goal was unity through the subjugation of the Communists, then the buildup of the GMD with massive infusions of military and economic aid to bolster the Nationalist regime and to discourage CCP resistance was entirely appropriate. If, on the other hand, the goal was unity through democratic pluralism, then cooperation with the Communists—including the provision of aid—and willingness by the Nationalists to make genuine concessions were suitable measures. Failing to acknowledge the intrinsic logic of means and ends, the United States ultimately tried to combine Chiang’s means with the State Department’s ends. America’s vision for China may have appeared reasonable to many. The United States simply desired a strong government

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led by Chiang that would befriend American interests, but it also wanted that government to be open and inclusive of opposing opinions. It did not want to see China’s government weakened by Communist resistance, but neither did it want Chiang to rule by ruthless suppression of opposition. The problem was that the American vision was impossible to realize under the actual political circumstances in China. Supporting Chiang and the GMD government necessarily meant encouraging unity by subjugation of opposition, while supporting open government necessarily meant cooperation with the Communists. The inconsistency embodied in American efforts to support simultaneously Chiang’s means and the State Department’s ends left the United States incapable of achieving any kind of “unity” during the postwar mediations. As a result of this contradiction in American policy, Chiang would be frustrated that his U.S. benefactors, while providing massive aid to his government and armed forces, would refuse to embrace wholly his efforts to achieve unity by driving the Communists into submission militarily. Those Chinese on the other side, in particular the democratic middle forces who wanted peace and the establishment of a pluralist government, would be frustrated that liberal America, while paying lip service to the idea of coalition, would preclude—willingly or not—the possibility of forming such a pluralist government by persisting in the very support of the Nationalists that encouraged Chiang to wage war on the CCP. The self-contradictory American policy, which had taken form during the last months of the Roosevelt administration, remained in place as Harry S. Truman assumed the presidency following Roosevelt’s death in April 1945. The contradiction would only deepen as months—and years— went by.

C HONGQING N EGOTIATIONS : C OMMUNIST A DVANCES WITH THE M IDDLE F ORCES Although pressures for peace arising from both the Chinese populace and the U.S. government impacted the Chongqing Negotiations, ultimately these anti–civil war sentiments could not overcome the momentum for a military solution that was built upon both Chiang Kai-shek’s predilections and America’s one-sided support of the Generalissimo. Nevertheless, overtures toward peace and promises of continued dialogue with the Communists in the convening of a Political Consultative Conference emerged from the Hurley mediation. These initiatives, detailed in the October 10 Agreement, gave rise to optimistic projections in the minds

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of many opponents of civil war, especially among the democratic middle forces. The direct participation in the talks by CCP Chairman Mao Zedong contributed not only to this sense of optimism, but also to closer ties between the Communists and the democrats. While in Chongqing during September, Mao took advantage of the opportunity to meet and talk with a number of important activists who were staking out the political terrain between the Nationalists and Communists. These democratic figures included the Democratic League Chairman Zhang Lan; well-known lawyer and one of the “Seven Gentlemen” Shen Junru; and economist and founder of the Vocational Education Society Huang Yanpei.44 At the time of their meetings with Mao, Zhang and Shen were busy working on the draft of a new postwar progamme for the Democratic League.45 Huang was in the midst of organizing a new political party to represent the concerns of China’s national capitalists, a group harshly treated and overly burdened by the policies of Chiang’s Nationalist government. Among the most active in the formation of this new party were businesspeople who in 1937 had voluntarily moved their factories and enterprises to the interior in coordination with Chiang Kai-shek’s relocation of the Nationalist capital in Chongqing. Enduring incalculable sacrifice in the process, they worked to serve the needs of the war of resistance against the Japanese by developing new industry in the rear. Led by former Shanghai industrialist Hu Juewen, who had himself organized the move inland of over 140 factories,46 a number of these businesspeople had banded together in the last year of the war to defend their interests against the thankless treatment they had been receiving at the hands of the government. For years, Chiang Kai-shek had accorded preferential treatment to the Four Families and had soaked the remaining capitalists in the regions under his control through heavy taxation. In 1945 the situation worsened. Hu and his cohorts became convinced that the Guomindang’s economic high-handedness was possible only because of the absence of political democracy in China. Hu thus collaborated with Huang to work toward the creation of a new political organization standing between the right-wing Guomindang and the left-wing Communist Party, a middle force to represent the interests of the “common people” (pingmin).47 Joined by such luminaries as banker Zhang Naiqi (another one of the “Seven Gentlemen”) and economist Shi Fuliang, Hu and Huang established a preparatory committee for the new organization that would be called the Chinese Democratic National Construction Association (CDNCA, Zhongguo minzhu jianguo hui or Minjian for short).48

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In the course of the preparatory committee’s work, Zhang and other committee leaders also had occasion to hold talks with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai in Chongqing. At that time, the Communist Party’s policy was to encourage the proliferation of democratic political groups in China. Within the broad framework of New-Democratic politics, the CCP reasoned that such organizations would, by their very nature, oppose the Guomindang dictatorship, thereby establishing common ground for an alliance with the Communists. Furthermore, the democratic groups would represent and mobilize many in the urban areas who either did not understand or did not fully agree with the Communist Party, providing for them a progressive alternative to the Nationalists. Finally, in a political milieu in which Communists could not engage in open organizing, to the extent that the CCP itself could work with and through these democratic groups, the party would be able to extend its influence with less danger of government repression.49 Mao’s discussions with Huang Yanpei, Zhang Naiqi, and the other CDNCA preparatory committee members reflected these considerations, but they also specifically addressed the CCP’s stance on the bourgeois social stratum the new organization intended to represent. Mao emphasized the positive role the Communists attributed to the national bourgeoisie in the New-Democratic revolution and reiterated the policy of the party to defend their interests. He maintained that the only future for the national bourgeoisie lay in a China that had won independence, democracy, and freedom. Mao therefore encouraged the formation of the Minjian and pledged the CCP’s cooperation with its efforts.50 A similar message was conveyed by communist leader Zhou Enlai, who, during these same weeks of the Chongqing Negotiations, accepted an invitation to address the Friday Dining Club, an association of businesspeople who regularly invited speakers to give talks to the members on issues of interest or significance to them. Zhou’s speech focused on the need for peace and for political and economic democracy. Zhou, like Mao, talked at length about the CCP’s policy of support for the national bourgeoisie and promoted the efforts underway to establish a representative political group.51 Such interactions between prominent democrats and the Chinese Communist Party opened and widened the lines of communication between the two. This relationship would later prove vital to the CCP as it locked horns with the United States in early 1947 in a struggle for the allegiance of the middle forces. In the meantime, however, the initial optimism of the democrats over the October 10 Agreement in Chongqing dissipated as the ongoing negotiations broke down.

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The specific stumbling block was the failure of the two sides to reach agreement on the key issue of the political control of the Communists’ liberated areas.52 The concrete manifestation of this rift was the dispute over political representation at the provincial level in these liberated zones: the Nationalists demanded that the central government appoint the governors, while the Communists demanded gubernatorial representation based on appointments by a council elected by districts and villages.53 The CCP saw the GMD refusal to budge on this issue of representation not only as evidence of Chiang’s commitment to a one-party dictatorship, but also as a stalling tactic, affording time to complete the transport of Nationalist troops to vital locations in the North and Northeast. Communist forces were, at the same time, rushing to expand their areas of control in these regions, adjacent to where Communist guerilla units had been active during the war. The military clashes that escalated during these weeks, as fighting broke out between the newly arriving GMD forces and Communist saboteurs, forced any plans for a political settlement to be put on hold. The impasse led to Hurley’s abrupt announcement of his resignation. Whatever the immediate obstacle had been, however, the stalemate in negotiations and the escalation of conflict were ultimately attributable to the fact that Hurley’s “mediation” was premised upon its “policy of unconditional support for the Nationalist government.”54 Despite the role of America’s support for Chiang in this turn of events, the gathering clouds of civil war nevertheless cast shadows over relations between the United States and the Guomindang. For all it had done for the Nationalists, American largesse still fell short of fulfilling Chiang Kaishek’s war-driven desires. While Chiang sought a blank check from the United States to procure military hardware and economic assistance, Washington viewed its own role in China as decidedly more limited. Its own domestic pressures committed the United States to bringing the troops home as quickly as possible.55 Moreover, bolder intervention in China by American forces might elicit a Soviet military response and lead to World War III, a totally unacceptable alternative for the United States at that moment, when consolidating the victory over the Axis powers was the prime objective. Although eschewing civil war, the United States nevertheless felt compelled to stop the CCP, for Mao’s armies were thought to be facilitating Soviet designs upon China and therefore threatening American interests. While some important figures in Washington, such as Secretary of State

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James F. Byrnes, questioned the sincerity of the Chinese Communists’ self-proclaimed “close” relations with their comrades in Moscow (Byrnes referred to the CCP as “so-called Communists”), most American officials saw them as “real”;56 in the words of General Marshall, the Chinese Communists were “stalking horses for Soviet power.”57 Taking all these elements into consideration, the task facing the Truman administration in late 1945 was politically, and militarily, to disarm the CCP without setting off civil war and without the massive U.S. troop intervention that would stir up opposition at home and risk war with the Soviets in Asia. Coalition government seemed to provide the perfect means of accomplishing this task—and the skilled and respected General George C. Marshall seemed the perfect man to carry it out.

T HE M ARSHALL M ISSION , P HASE I: E MBRACING C OALITION G OVERNMENT General Marshall had just arrived at his new home in Virginia, where he hoped to enjoy a peaceful retirement after serving as World War II army chief of staff, when President Truman telephoned him. Truman requested that he begin packing for a new mission in China to try to pick up the pieces left over from Hurley’s failure.58 Marshall was to arrive in China a month after Hurley’s resignation with a directive to redouble U.S. efforts to establish a coalition government. It was widely believed at this time that Communist participation in a coalition would depoliticize the Communist-led people’s army and leave the CCP functioning as a minority party. As one American official argued, “A reduction in the influence of the Communists might be more readily achieved if the [Chinese Nationalist] Government ‘took them in’ (in more senses than one) on a minority basis rather than try to shoot them all.”59 Not all reasoning in support of a coalition government was this cynical, however. In the same way that General Douglas MacArthur, now Supreme Commander of Allied powers in Japan, was at that very moment basing U.S. occupation policy on his deep conviction that the liberal, democratic, constitutional state would render powerless political extremists of both the right and the left, so the advocates of coalition government in China, including Marshall, shared the faith that if such a state could be constructed, Chinese politics would naturally drift toward moderation.60 A perplexing question, however, challenged these American liberals: how could such a regime be established when the country was already polarized into political extremes and the moderate middle forces were

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Figure 1-C Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek greets General George C. Marshall upon the latter’s arrival in China, December 21, 1945. The Marshall Mission would continue in China until early January, 1947. Source: Courtesy of George C. Marshall Foundation.

relatively weak? In Japan, the near omnipotence the United States enjoyed by virtue of its dominant role in the Occupation would allow MacArthur to draft a constitution to his liking and see to its passage, employing a none-too-subtle reminder of America’s use of the atomic bomb to overcome the reluctance of Japan’s right-wing government to endorse the document.61 By the same token, with America’s occupying armed forces ever-present in the background, MacArthur would be able to intervene to halt a leftist-inspired general labor strike in early 1947.62 American might, its military muscle, thus compensated for the relative weakness of Japanese liberals. But in China, American powers were far more circumscribed. The task of forming a coalition government would prove formidable indeed. The responses of the GMD and the CCP to U.S. proposals for a coalition government are revealing. Throughout 1945 and 1946, each side displayed somewhat more openness to the idea of negotiated settlement when faced with military setbacks. But in general, the Nationalists were more resistant to coalition because, as they saw it, their government would only be opened up to Communist “infiltration.”63 In addition, Chiang was shrewd enough to recognize the commitment that the United States

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had made to him, and, confident that American aid would always be forthcoming,64 he had little incentive to do other than continue his drive for total military victory. Chiang had in fact read the situation correctly. As Marshall noted on the eve of his departure from Washington to undertake his mission, I stated (to President Truman and Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson) that my understanding of one phase of my directive was not in writing but I thought I had a clear understanding of his [Truman’s] desires in the matter, which was that in the event I was unable to secure the necessary action by the Generalissimo, which I thought reasonable and desirable, it would be necessary for the U.S. government, through me, to continue to back the National Government of the Republic of China—through the Generalissimo within the terms of the announced policy of the U.S. government.65

Truman and Acheson confirmed that Marshall understood correctly. Chiang, too, understood correctly that America would continue to support him, regardless of whether or not he took the “necessary actions” toward democratization that Marshall deemed “reasonable and desirable.” With the defeat and subsequent occupation of Japan, America’s concerns in Asia shifted primarily toward the defense of its interests in anticipation of the threat of a future presence of Soviet Communism in the region. The United States saw Chiang and the GMD as the sole force in China with the capability and determination to offer stiff opposition to any possible Soviet designs on the country, whether they be direct, by seizing the Northeast for example, or indirect, by supporting insurrection under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Simply put, America’s paramount concern with combating Communism tied its hands in promoting democracy. Indeed, Marshall consistently faced a dilemma in urging coalition government upon the Nationalists: Chiang constantly demanded aid in return for his cooperation, yet the more aid he received, the more assured he felt in pursuing a military, rather than a political, solution to his Communist challenge. The CCP, on the other hand, while ever suspect of U.S. intentions, nevertheless welcomed what appeared to be a series of fresh initiatives for a coalition government at the end of 1945. On December 15, President Truman broke new ground in his declaration that an all-inclusive regime lay at the very heart of the America’s goal of a “strong, united, and democratic China.” Acknowledging publicly what had normally been talked about only behind closed doors—that the Nationalist regime fell short of the standards necessary to be called a “democracy”—the U.S. president

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was now calling for the GMD’s “one-party government” to be broadened “to include other political elements in the country.”66 Without the democratization of the Chinese government, Truman feared, world peace and the successful formation of the United Nations would be threatened.67 The president’s concerns were apparently shared by other world leaders, as well. On December 27, the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers, attended by representatives of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States, issued a communiqué affirming “the need for a unified and democratic China under the National Government, [and] for broad participation by democratic elements in all branches of the National Government.”68 These statements thus provided the international context for Marshall’s assignment in China and, although the Communists were under no illusions that the fundamental policy of the United States still centered on the support of Chiang Kai-shek, they nevertheless took the new words as hopeful signs.69 The favorable Communist response to these American overtures should not have been too surprising, for the U.S. initiatives dovetailed nicely with the CCP’s own postwar political agenda. The party had itself issued a call for coalition government in late 1944, even as the war with Japan raged on, as a reformulation of the politics of its revolutionary programme, New Democracy. New Democracy advocated the creation of a state, a “people’s democracy,” based upon a multiclass alliance led by the working class through the Communist Party. The New-Democratic state would in turn lay the foundation for a later transition to socialism. The CCP identified coalition government as the most opportune means to advance toward New Democracy, given the conditions in China at that time. The Communists optimistically anticipated both the official recognition they would receive in the new government and the opportunity to engage in a public battle of ideas with the GMD—a battle they were confident of winning. Perhaps most important in the CCP’s decision to advance the call for coalition government, however, was the party’s cognizance that the concept concentrated many of the political demands of the middle forces and would thus win their support. The intermediate elements were crucial to the Communists’ efforts to avoid political isolation and to broaden their social base.70 Indeed, when the CCP’s vision of coalition government was first presented in September 1944 to the National Representative Conference of the Federation of Chinese Democratic Parties (the federation was renamed at the conference as the “China Democratic League”), it won swift and widespread approval. The approval was a most significant development, for the Democratic League was by far the largest representative

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body of the liberal middle forces.71 On October 10, 1944, China’s National Day, the League issued a major policy statement delineating its political stance during the final stage of the anti-Japanese war. Prominently included was the demand that the Nationalist government “immediately put an end to one-party dictatorship, establish a coalition regime of all parties and groups, and put into practice democratic governance.”72 In April 1945, Mao Zedong drew upon this enthusiasm and drafted his famous article “On Coalition Government.” Mao submitted this lengthy treatise as his political report to the Communist Party’s historic Seventh National Congress, reflecting the centrality of coalition government to CCP policy at the time. The article detailed and systematized the concept and fit the role of coalition government into the broader picture of the Chinese Revolution. While reaffirming that the CCP’s future aim and maximum program was “to carry China forward to socialism and Communism,” Mao stressed that at that moment, “the most important thing” was to abolish immediately “the Guomindang one-party dictatorship.”73 At the core of this minimum program was the establishment of a “democratic provisional central government, a coalition government enjoying nation-wide support and including representatives of all the antiJapanese parties and people without party affiliation.”74 The provisional coalition government would in turn lay the basis for the “free and unrestricted elections” of a national assembly, resulting finally in the establishment of a regular coalition government.75 Presumably, Mao thought that the free expression of popular will, and in particular the will of the workers and peasants, would ultimately result in Communist predominance in such a government. “On Coalition Government” received unusually broad popular support among China’s democratic middle forces. According to several liberals who were leading activists at the time, this article became the most widely circulated CCP document in urban China between 1945 and 1949.76 The liberals saw in the proposal a realistic mechanism, in the short run, to avoid civil war between the Nationalists and Communists and, in the long run, to create the pluralist democracy they so ardently demanded. The article’s impact was such that six prominent members of the Guomindanginitiated wartime advisory body, the People’s Political Council, traveled to Yan’an in June of 1945 for meetings with Mao and Zhou Enlai to hammer out concrete proposals for the creation of such a coalition government. It was here that one member of the delegation, Huang Yanpei, who would soon distinguish himself as cofounder of the China Democratic National Construction Association, first met Mao. Upon returning from the Communist headquarters, Huang wrote a popular booklet, Yan’an guilai

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(To Yan’an and back), recording for a largely uninformed urban audience his favorable impressions of the Red base area.77 Such enthusiasm demonstrates just how important a coalition government was, both to the Communists and to the liberals. By the time Marshall arrived in China, therefore, the United States, the Chinese Communists, and the liberals all supported—for different reasons, to be sure—the proposal for a coalition government. Of the main political actors in China, only Chiang Kai-shek balked at the idea, realizing he had little to gain from such a shift in political structure. Many thought, however, that Chiang’s compliance might nevertheless be procured through the dual pressure applied by the Chinese public and by his U.S. benefactors—especially if the aid that encouraged him to pursue the military option were curtailed.78 Hence, the prospects for the success of Marshall’s initiative on a coalition government appeared reasonable.

Figure 1-D Six leading democrats, all members of the People’s Political Council (Guomin canzhenghui), met with the Communists in their capital at Yan’an in early July 1945 to discuss prospects for creating a coalition government. Pictured at the Yan’an airfield are CCP leaders Zhou Enlai, Zhu De (first and second on the left), and Mao Zedong (on the far right). The democrats (beginning third from the left) include Zuo Shunsheng, Fu Sinian, Leng Yu, Zhang Bojun, Chu Fucheng, and Huang Yanpei.

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M ARSHALL’ S E ARLY S UCCESS : C EASEFIRE , THE PCC, AND M ILITARY R EORGANIZATION On other issues, the mediation offered promise as well. The most pressing concern facing Marshall when he landed in China was a recent escalation of armed conflict between the GMD and CCP. But on January 10, 1946, Marshall scored a major achievement as he oversaw the signing of a ceasefire agreement between the two parties. The Nationalists were granted a concession in this settlement, permitting the continued movements of GMD troops to the Northeast; other than that allowance, however, troop positions were to be frozen. The agreement also provided for the creation of an Executive Headquarters (commonly referred to as the Committee of Three) to oversee the efforts of observation teams sent to areas of conflict to halt or prevent hostilities.79 The Committee of Three, whose decisions required unanimous consent, included Marshall (representing the United States), Zhang Qun (representing the Nationalists), and Zhou Enlai (representing the Communists). A second positive development for Marshall followed soon after: the convening of the Political Consultative Conference (PCC) from January 10–31. In addition to the GMD and the CCP, the left-liberal Democratic League, the right-leaning Youth Party,80 and several nonparty delegates all took part in the meeting. All those involved—including the GMD—strove to avoid the impression of being obstructionist to a peaceful solution.81 The PCC resolutions offered a framework for a national union based on a coalition government under a liberal constitution. Key among the proposals passed by the delegates were the following: (1) commitment to the adoption of a constitution and the formation of a genuine coalition government, including the establishment of a cabinet-style of government, with the executive branch responsible to the legislative; (2) the affirmation of the power of local governments, with provincial governors selected by popular election rather than by central government appointment; and (3) agreement that the political and military status quo would be maintained in areas of China under dispute after the Japanese evacuation. These resolutions were generally quite favorable to the democratic middle forces and to the Communists in that they limited the executive power that Chiang coveted and the centralized control his party had manipulated; furthermore, the stipulations legitimized the CCP for the first time and extended CCP control over the local political administration throughout the large sections of China where the Communists had begun to sink roots.82

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As a concession to Nationalist concerns over this political settlement— and to the demands as well of the democrats for the nationalization and depoliticization of the armed forces—the Communists on February 25 signed a separate program for military reorganization, a third triumph in Marshall’s mediation efforts. Military reorganization presented one of thorniest issues in the GMD-CCP negotiations. Since the 1920s, Chiang had been first and foremost a military man, determined to unite China by force of arms. The Communists, for their part, had learned from their defeat in Chiang’s 1927 coup that maintaining their own independent Red army was indispensable to the party’s ongoing revolutionary struggle. In spite of these historical concerns, the two sides signed an agreement providing that over the next eighteen months, the GMD would field fifty divisions and the CCP ten divisions in a national army, and that in the future, party armies would be abolished and replaced by a unified command.83 On the face of it, the advantages gained by the Nationalists in this military restructuring agreement were enormous. Not only were the numbers heavily weighted in Chiang’s favor (for example, there was an overall five to one troop ratio advantage—fourteen to one in the Northeast), but the paring of troop strength would actually allow Chiang to clear his ranks of a large number of unreliable forces. By contrast, the required troop reductions would seriously weaken the CCP, whose forces were highly motivated and could all be put to effective use.84 The Communists, however, agreed to this program for two reasons. First, it placed Chiang in charge only of his own forces—he was no longer the “Supreme Commander” as he had been during the war—and it legitimized CCP control over its own divisions in the national army. Second, in acknowledging the legitimacy of local self-government,85 it offered the Communists a means of maintaining a formidable armed force, despite the cutbacks. As CCP signatory Zhou Enlai interpreted the agreement, the five to one ratio applied only to the divisions assigned to the army of national defense; the use of armed forces in defense of local governments in the liberated areas was not proscribed. The Communists thus saw the ratio as a restraint “of minor importance.” What was most crucial to the CCP was the continued operation of its “people’s forces” in the Communist-held districts.86

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T HE M ARSHALL M ISSION , P HASE II: T HE A GREEMENTS U NRAVEL The cease-fire, PCC resolutions, and military reorganization plan stood as crowning achievements of the Marshall Mission. Encouraged by these early successes, Washington recalled General Marshall in March of 1946 for briefings, during which time he helped secure for Chiang’s National government a five hundred million dollar loan from the Export-Import Bank. But in his absence from the Chinese scene, the negotiated settlements quickly began to unravel. When the Nationalist Party convened its Central Executive Committee (CEC) in March to discuss the PCC resolutions, it first elected a leading core dominated by the right wing “CC Clique,” headed by the powerful brothers Chen Lifu and Chen Guofu. The hard-line CEC immediately proceeded to reject the constitutional provisions of the PCC that limited the role of the executive, confined the function of the GMD-dominated National Assembly to advisory duties, and granted local constitution-making powers to the provinces. Remarkably, and to its later regret,87 the Communist Party agreed to modify those provisions in deference to Nationalist demands. Although the Nationalists thus “ratified unanimously” the PCC resolutions—as modified—there nevertheless remained, as the U.S. State Department later put it, “indications that approval had been hedged by reservations and that irreconcilable elements within the Guomindang were endeavoring to sabotage the PCC.”88 Neither Marshall nor his counterparts in Washington took effective steps to counter this sabotage. In the meantime, the Communists and the Democratic League responded by reaffirming their commitments to the PCC resolutions as binding agreements, agreed to by authorized political representatives of all major parties in China. They strongly opposed any further changes to the resolutions, and they refused to move forward on GMD initiatives until the Nationalists agreed in writing to implement the PCC programme as revised.89 While the wrangling over these political issues contributed to the breakdown of Marshall’s mediation, the military developments in Northeast China between March and May were far more calamitous. During these months, the Soviets withdrew their troops from the positions they had occupied in the final phase of the war to drive Japan from Manchuria. While the Soviet pullout may have appeared at the moment to be a most welcome development to Marshall and the United States, the move actually intensified the crisis in China.90 The Soviet presence in the Northeast kept at bay GMD forces that Chiang had dispatched to occupy the region. The pullout finally opened the door for the Nationalist Army.

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Simultaneously, the CCP, having been allowed access to the Northeast by the Soviets and now convinced of Chiang Kai-shek’s commitment to civil war,91 saw opportunity in the vacuum created by the Soviet withdrawal. With Soviet cooperation and with the provision of surrendered Japanese arms by the evacuating Red Army forces, the CCP successfully occupied much of the region, capturing the major cities of Changchun and Harbin. This Communist victory was short-lived, however. Nationalist forces, continuously augmented by reinforcements transported into the Northeast by the United States from the Southwest, took over these and other cities after forcing a Communist evacuation in late May. The sudden reversal led the CCP to re-evaluate the situation. It chose to regroup in order to consolidate its gains to that point. Under the circumstances, the Communists once again offered to resume negotiations. Chiang Kai-shek, on the other hand, was buoyed by his success, and, despite Marshall’s objection (he thought from a military standpoint that Chiang was overextended), the Generalissimo pressed ahead toward his ultimate goal of military conquest. Both sides could now accuse each other of breaking the cease-fire agreement of January 10, and neither side could accept the word of the other. By early June, however, Chiang, too, needed to consolidate his positions in the Northeast so that he could turn needed attention to the escalating conflict south of the Great Wall. With Marshall mediating, a truce for the Northeast was thus declared on June 6. But the cease-fire was fleeting. In light of his recent victories, Chiang issued demands for unrealistic concessions of Communist-held territories, demands that the CCP naturally refused to consider. The truce lapsed on June 30 with the two parties having reached no new agreement.92

B ETWEEN THE N ATIONALIST PARTY AND THE C OMMUNIST PARTY While the polarization between the Nationalists and Communists intensified, the liberal middle forces who had been so active in the PCC negotiations continued to play an important role on the political scene. As early as February, the liberals had organized rallies and mass meetings in cities across the land to celebrate the prospects for peace and democracy embodied in the PCC resolutions. Reflecting right-wing discontent with these agreements, however, the GMD youth organization, “Three People’s Principles Youth Corps,” retaliated. On February 22, the corps sponsored an anti-Communist, anti-Soviet demonstration, mobilizing some ten thousand students in the government’s stronghold of Chongqing. The

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gathering turned violent, and some of the Youth Corps members broke into the publishing offices of both the Communist Party’s New China Daily and the Democratic League’s Democracy Journal, smashing furniture, files, and printing equipment.93 Within days of that incident, another Democratic League celebration of the PCC agreement in Chongqing was broken up by Nationalist agents, and such middle-force luminaries as publisher Li Gongpu, writer Shi Fuliang, and banker Zhang Naiqi—all of whom had become famous national heroes in the movements to resist Japanese aggression—sustained injuries in the raid.94 GMD police also broke into the residences of several Democratic League leaders and proceeded to ransack the offices of the League’s national headquarters.95 Even in the face of this harsh repression, the organizing activities of the middle forces continued during this period and reached a high point during the June truce. The threat of all-out civil war had fostered the growth of a liberal-led peace movement of massive proportions. In early May in Shanghai alone, fifty-two organizations had announced the founding of the “Coalition of Shanghai People’s Organizations,” dedicated to peace and democracy. The following month, the coalition seized upon the opportunity presented by the truce and resumption of peace talks to press its demand for an end to the civil war. Passions ran deep as the coalition realized the urgency for peace in an increasingly divisive national environment. The coalition, led by two newly formed liberal societies, the Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy and the Chinese Democratic National Construction Association, laid plans to send a “Shanghai People’s Peace Petition Delegation” to the newly re-established national capital at Nanjing to demonstrate the widespread sentiments among the people for a permanent end to civil war. The eleven delegates, led by the celebrated professor Ma Xulun, included a number of businessmen and professionals; one was a woman, the educator and women’s rights activist Lei Jieqiong. The coalition resolved to organize a send-off rally at the train station to evidence the popular support for the delegation’s mission. On June 23, more than fifty thousand demonstrators thronged the Shanghai North Railway Station, voicing their opposition to civil war. Most in the crowd were workers—especially textile workers—but also present were large numbers of shop employees, students, and professionals. At the station, the main speaker declared that the cease-fire was insufficient, that lasting peace was needed, and that only the strength of the people could achieve that goal and bring an end to Chiang’s “one-party dictatorship.” As the peace train, bedecked with streamers and banners opposing civil war, steamed out of the station, the marchers moved on to

Figure 1-E Members of the Shanghai Peace Delegation prepare to depart for Nanjing to present a petition to the Nationalist government to stop the civil war. Delegates include Kui Yanfang, Hu Ziying (f), Sheng Pihua, Zhang Jiongbo, Yan Baohang, Lei Jieqiong (f), Bao Dasan, and Ma Xulun.

Figure 1-F A portion of the crowd of 50,000 who gathered at the Shanghai North Railway Station on June 23, 1946, for the Peace Delegation’s send-off rally.

Figure 1-G The Peace Delegation traveled by train to the capital city, Nanjing, to present their petition. Nationalist police agents stormed the train as it entered the Xiaguan Station. Peace banners bedecking the coaches were ripped away and the delegates were badly beaten. Pictured here is a similar train, this one commandeered the following spring by students at Jiaotong University and diverted to Nanjing in another effort to petition for peace.

Figure 1-H As Peace Delegate Ma Xulun lay in his hospital bed recovering from the injuries he sustained at the hands of the police in the “Xiaguan Atrocity,” Communist Party leader Zhou Enlai paid him a visit to wish him well.

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a second rally site, where several leading activists were arrested by GMD police. When the train arrived in Suzhou, Nationalist agents boarded the train and proceeded to strip the banners from the railcars. As the locomotive finally pulled into the Xiaguan Station in Nanjing, club-wielding Guomindang troopers descended on the delegation in a violent assault that ended in serious injuries requiring emergency hospitalization. The incident was soon publicized throughout China by the liberals as the “Xiaguan Atrocity.”96 The most serious of the Nationalist attacks on the middle forces occurred the following month, with the political assassinations of two influential Democratic League (DL) leaders, Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo. Li had moved to Kunming, in the southwestern province of Yunnan, after recovering from the injuries he had sustained at the hands of pro-GMD demonstrators in Chongqing in February. It was in Kunming that he had resumed publishing the League newspaper Democratic Weekly, working closely with its editor, the respected scholar and poet, Wen Yiduo. The Guomindang press launched a smear campaign against these DL leaders, accusing them of fomenting a Soviet-inspired rebellion. On the evening of July 11, returning home from a concert with his wife, Li was shot by a GMD agent. He died the following day. Three days later, after delivering the eulogy at Li’s funeral, Wen, walking with his son, was accosted by several men armed with assault weapons. They opened fire and brutally cut him down. The assassinations shocked China’s liberal community, and massive demonstrations led to a thorough investigation of the crime over the next two months that kept the eyes of the educated populace riveted on the case.97 The acts of repression by Chiang’s GMD hit men increased liberal suspicions of his commitment to the PCC resolutions—and to democracy in general. Simultaneously, Nationalist offenses increased liberal support for the Communists, who strongly condemned the assassinations and gave wide coverage to the events in their press. That support was not automatic, however, for the middle forces had not taken kindly to all of the CCP’s actions either. Two issues in particular concerned the liberals. The first was the Communist Party’s silence on Soviet activities in Northeast China throughout the early spring of 1946. Under Stalin’s orders, the USSR had been seizing and removing the industrial plants of Manchuria. Having joined the war against Japan in early August of 1945, and having proceeded swiftly to rout the Imperial Army from its long-established base in Manchuria (thereby hastening the Japanese surrender), the Soviets claimed the right to reparations in this region that the Japanese had occupied.

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Chinese democrats, however, saw the situation in different terms. Driven by patriotic sentiments, they claimed for China the right to take over for its own purposes whatever the Japanese left behind. Manchuria, after all, had been carved out of the Northeastern provinces of China. If the Soviet removal of industry were not injury enough to patriotic liberals, the publication in the spring of 1946 of the previously secret Yalta Agreement served only to rub salt in their wounds. The document revealed that Stalin had resecured the special Russian privileges in Northeast China that had first been claimed by the czar at the turn of the twentieth century (and later renounced by Lenin). Anti-Soviet fury over the Yalta accord spilled into the streets with demonstrations attacking Russian infringement on Chinese sovereignty. In addition to opposing the CCP for its reticence in regard to Soviet impingement on China’s national rights, many liberals also distanced themselves from the Communists over breaking news emanating from the countryside. Landlords were fleeing to the cities, recounting harrowing tales (whether true or not) of CCP-inspired peasant violence in the seizure and redistribution of land. Such uprisings, in the minds of many urban democrats, threatened to undermine the most important of their political concerns for postwar China: the realization of national peace and stability. The Communists nevertheless weathered these criticisms. Realizing that stripping Manchuria of its industrial base was diminishing Soviet prestige in China and fearful that these actions might encourage the Chinese government to attempt to rebuild this strategic region with American capital, the Soviets suddenly ceased their activities in the Northeast. Moreover, Stalin recognized the ill will fostered by the ongoing occupation of the region and thought that by withdrawing his forces, he could enhance the Soviet position. As one scholar has noted, “Stalin’s aims were to force the GMD to make economic concessions, to prevent a united China from allying with the United States, and to placate Washington on the international arena by giving in to American demands for withdrawal.”98 With all these considerations in mind, Stalin pulled the Red Army out of China entirely by May. These moves quickly quieted most of the anti-Russian sentiment. Rural violence, however, was a more complex issue, for the CCP needed not only to mollify the liberals, who wanted social peace, but also to satisfy the land-hungry peasants, who demanded social justice, particularly from landed elites who had collaborated with the Japanese. As the threat of all-out civil war deepened, the Communists recognized further that their social base for military recruitment lay precisely among these poor peasants, who, impatient for land redistribution, had already begun

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confiscating landlord holdings in violation of the party’s official policy of demanding only rent and interest reduction.99 In trying to balance the competing political exigencies presented by the urban liberals and by the rural poor, CCP leaders issued a directive on May 4, 1946, affirming the party’s support of peasant actions to seize and redistribute the property of those landlords who were local tyrants and Japanese collaborators. At the same time, the directive emphasized the need to assuage the concerns of the liberals as follows: “It is necessary to make appropriate explanations to non-Party personages. We must ask them to support the demand of the peasants, pointing out to them that the solution to the land problem is the just demand of over 90% of the people, it is in accordance with Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s principles and the resolution of the Political Consultative Conference and, what is more, it considers the interests of people of all walks of life including the rich peasants and the landlords.”100 The “appropriate explanations” seem to have worked. The democrats’ opposition was cooled. Perhaps because of the constant repression the middle forces were facing in the cities during that time at the hands of Chiang’s state apparatus,101 many of them, in particular those in the Democratic League, reserved judgment on the Communists for social upheaval in the countryside and remained open to cooperation with the CCP during the ensuing months of Marshall’s sojourn in China.

M ARSHALL’ S FAILURE By the end of June 1946, Marshall’s mission had witnessed the exodus of the Soviet armies and with them the threat of Russian domination of Northeast China—undoubtedly seen in Washington as a major triumph in the early Cold War. But the Marshall Mission would never see the achievement of its primary goal: the creation of a coalition government to unify China and render harmless the CCP. As the summer wore on, the Communists grew increasingly angry over continued U.S. aid to the GMD, and they hardened their anti-American stance. Mao concluded at the end of September, “I doubt very much the U.S. policy is one of “mediation.” . . . The policy of the U.S. government is to use the so-called “mediation” as a smokescreen for strengthening Chiang Kai-shek in every way and suppressing the democratic forces in China through Chiang Kaishek’s policy of slaughter, so as to reduce China to virtually a U.S. colony.”102 Perhaps CCP anti-Americanism was fueled by statements emanating from Moscow at that time that both excoriated American activity in China and expressed renewed confidence in the Chinese Communists.103

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Already clearly leaning toward the USSR, Mao stated, “The day will come when U.S. reactionaries will find themselves opposed by the people of the whole world.” In a reciprocal gesture of good will toward Moscow, he added, “The Soviet Union is a defender of world peace and a powerful factor preventing the domination of the world by U.S. reactionaries.”104 The positions of both Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, hardening in the context of the escalating civil war, rendered a negotiated settlement next to impossible in the last half of 1946. One last opportunity presented itself when, in late September, military and political developments combined to create a glimmer of hope for the middle forces, who, now referred to as the “Third Party Group,” still clung to the goal of mediated peace. At that moment, Nationalist forces were moving against the Communist-occupied city of Zhangjiakou (Kalgan), northwest of Beiping. The CCP might be willing to talk, the liberals reasoned, if Chiang could only be persuaded to suspend the drive. The democrats realized they might have just the leverage needed to coax Chiang into halting his forces because of developments on the political front. The GMD was moving forward with plans to convene a National Assembly in November. If the middle forces and CCP withheld their participation, the “democratic” luster of the new institution—so important to the GMD’s domestic and international image at that moment—would be seriously tarnished; Chiang’s “National Assembly” would appear to be simply a gathering of his own faithful to rubber-stamp his “one-party dictatorship.” Thus, it was possible that the military needs of the Communists and the political needs of the Nationalists might just bring both sides to the table. A flurry of activities during the month of October, however, ultimately achieved no resolution to the conflict.105 Chiang’s army seized Zhangjiakou and the Generalissimo unilaterally pressed forward with his plans for the National Assembly, soon persuading leaders of the China Youth Party to attend, lending the body a “multiparty,” democratic façade. Presented with the convening of the assembly as a fait accompli, a majority faction of one other party, the Democratic-Socialist Party, also agreed to participate, along with a number of other well-known personages.106 However, the majority of middle forces—including the Democratic League and a number of other, newly formed democratic parties, groups, and individuals—joined with the Communist Party to object strenuously to the convening of the National Assembly. The liberals and the Communists alike saw the convening of the National Assembly as a violation the PCC resolutions from the previous January that predicated the inauguration of that body on a genuine truce, the reorganization

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of the government, and the bona fide extension of civil rights to the people.107 The polarization intensified still further. The fractures revealed by the acrimony over the National Assembly only widened with the signing of a new trade treaty between China and the United States, announced on November 4, just as the National Assembly was about to convene. This “Sino-U.S. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation” gave U.S. business interests the right to produce and market goods throughout China, to develop mineral resources, and to lease and hold land. In all these economic pursuits, Americans were to be accorded the same rights as Chinese. In addition, the treaty guaranteed that U.S. goods would be taxed at a rate no higher than Chinese commodities—in other words, China could impose no protective tariff—and no trade barriers would be erected by either side. American nationals, in addition, would be free to carry on educational, scientific, philanthropic, and religious activities throughout China without restriction. Finally, American ships were assured access to all ports in China, and even U.S. warships were given the right to ply Chinese waters, should they perceive “any . . . distress.”108 The treaty was clearly intended by the Nationalists to cement relations with the United States. As China’s ambassador to the United States at the time, Wellington Koo, described the document, it meant “the opening up of the entire territory of China to U.S. merchants.”109 The content of the agreement looked very much like the “unequal treaties” that had been imposed on China by the Western imperialists a century earlier, and the document provided plenty of ammunition for critics, who aimed both barrels at the bargain as a sellout of Chinese sovereignty and a death sentence for China’s indigenous industry. The treaty thus served to contribute to the widening gap between the Nationalist government and its opponents—including not only the Communists, but patriotic democrats as well. By the end of 1946, Marshall was indeed frustrated in his efforts to mediate, and he decided to return to Washington. Nevertheless, whether out of personal conviction, out of despair of a better option, or out of treacherous deception (as the CCP claimed110), he threw his support behind the National Assembly—and the new constitution being drafted by that body—as a hopeful basis for unifying China. Still, Marshall noted as he departed for home, one key element was missing: an organized force of liberals.


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T H E B AT T L E L I N E S A R E D R AW N : U.S. C O N T E N T I O N W I T H T H E CCP T O W I N T H E M I D D L E F O R C E S , 1947

By the end of 1946, the military and political situation in China had

changed markedly from those moments in January and February when the Marshall Mission appeared so promising. The truce that Marshall had been able to negotiate so readily as a result of his first meetings with representatives of the GMD and CCP had long since vanished among the clouds of gunfire that accompanied the Nationalists’ autumn offensive. As the State Department’s China White Paper summarized the military developments, During the period of General Marshall’s mission in China, the [GMD] government considerably improved its military holdings. Government armies in mid-1946 comprised approximately 3,000,000 men, opposed by something over 1,000,000 Communists of whom an estimated 400,000 were not regular troops. . . . During the latter part of 1946, the Nationalists made impressive gains, clearing most of Shensi [Shaanxi], Kansu [Gansu], north Shansi [Shanxi], south Chahar [Chaha’er], part of northern Hopei [Hebei] and Jehol [Rehe], and nearly all of Kiangsu [Jiangsu]. The government seized Kalgan [Zhangjiakou], Tatung [Datong], Chengte [Chengde], and gained control of the Ping-sui [Beiping-Suiyuan] Railroad.1

In Shandong, the Nationalists achieved a major advance, clearing much of the Jin-pu Railway (Tianjin-Pukou), which ran along the coast from the North to the capital of Nanjing. Communist gains during the period were

Figure 2-A Map of Eastern China during the civil war.

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limited to minor advances into Henan and Hubei and infiltration around government positions in Manchuria.2 By the end of 1946, then, the civil war was being fought on a broad scale as Chiang Kai-shek’s forces pressed forward, heavily equipped with U.S. weaponry and matériel as part of America’s ongoing effort to “discourage” Communist resistance to the Nationalists. The CCP armies, in response, were just beginning to take advantage of the overextension of Chiang’s forces to mount effective counterattacks. Politically, the situation had changed dramatically as well. The PCC accords lay in shambles as the Guomindang proceeded with the convening of a National Assembly, in spite of the meeting’s boycott by both the Chinese Communists and the Democratic League. The Nationalists had convinced the right-wing Youth Party and the fractured DemocraticSocialist Party to participate in the assembly, but had alienated many more of the middle forces with consistent acts of repression against activists working for peace and democracy. The PCC agreement now stood merely as a symbol of what might have been. U.S. support for Chiang against the Communists had thus resulted in civil war and political polarization. Yet America still clung to its hopes for the creation of a coalition government in China. Perhaps Marshall had understood the contradiction between the two commitments—to Chiang and to a pluralist democracy—when he had called for an embargo of U.S. aid to the Chinese government as civil war boiled over in the late summer of 1946. But by then Chiang was already well outfitted, and his Americantrained and transported divisions were already deployed in key locations vis-á-vis the Communists’ strongholds. Besides, the cut-off of aid had not ended other forms of support, including the continued presence of thousands of U.S. marines in strategic cities and ports throughout North and East China.3 Nor had Marshall’s embargo prevented him from supporting the Nationalists’ political initiatives, undertaken in disregard of the PCC accords he himself had helped broker. Clearly, when Marshall packed his bags to leave China in January of 1947, the situation was not as it had been in January of the previous year—and the changed conditions imposed upon Marshall a refocus of U.S. policy.

M ARSHALL’ S N EW P OLICY On January 7, 1947, General Marshall issued his “Final Statement,” relating his firsthand impressions of the “intricate and confused situation” in China.4 After outlining his basic views on both the GMD and the CCP,

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Marshall offered the following summary: “Sincere efforts to achieve settlement have been frustrated time and again by extremist elements on both sides.” Assessing the prospects for the future, he continued, The salvation of the situation as I see it, would be the assumption of leadership by the liberals in the government and in the minority parties, a splendid group of men, but who as yet lack the political power to exercise a controlling influence. Successful action on their part under the leadership of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek would, I believe, lead to unity through good government.5

The means by which liberals could exercise political power under Marshall’s plan was spelled out in a later State Department explanation as follows: He [Marshall] pointed out that the liberal Chinese should band together in a single liberal patriotic organization devoted to the welfare of the people and not to the selfish interests of minority party group leaders. They would then be able to exert influence in the political situation, an influence which would increase as the group gained prestige. Such a group could stand between the Guomindang and the Communist Party and neither of them could normally take a decisive step without the support of the liberal party.6

Hopeful signs that such liberal influence might in fact be exerted had been offered to Marshall numerous times during his mission. During 1946, the influence of the “minor parties,” as Marshall called them, rested upon a history of liberal activism dating back fifteen years to 1931, when independent democrats first became a significant political force in China. At a time when the Communists’ urban organization had been decimated by Chiang Kai-shek’s campaign of suppression known as the “white terror,” the liberals led hundreds of thousands in Shanghai and other cities to demonstrate their opposition to Japanese aggression. They organized a civil rights movement to press the Nationalists for the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly in order to advance the resistance movement, and, beginning in late 1935, they launched the powerful National Salvation Movement, calling for unity among all the Chinese people to combat the unrelenting Japanese threats to their country’s sovereignty. When Chiang finally agreed to accept such a unified effort—after being pressed to do so by his own generals who had kidnapped him in the famous Xi’an Incident in December of 1936—the Generalissimo invited the liberals to join the newly created People’s Political Council (Guomin canzhenghui), a wartime united front government advisory body. In the


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face of Japan’s all-out invasion during 1937, it was liberal businessmen who led the movement to relocate scores of factories that were crucial to the defense effort from the coast to the interior, beyond the reach of Japanese forces.7 Having assumed these important roles, several of these patriotic groupings coalesced during the war to form the Federation of Chinese Democratic Parties, later clarifying their commitment to liberalism and changing their name in 1944 to the Democratic League. Other liberal parties formed in the immediate aftermath of the war.8

T HE M IDDLE F ORCES

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The Democratic League and the other liberal parties and groups strove to claim for themselves a centrist political position between the Nationalists and the Communists. As the League’s political report of October 1945 declared, the organization maintained “no preconceived notions of leaning either to the left or to the right, no bias toward bourgeois democracy or socialist democracy.” The report noted the positive elements of Western parliamentary democracy, especially its provision for civil rights and multiparty rule, but it also pointed out the negative features of Western society, in particular the vast inequalities between rich and poor. It was on the basis of these observations that the Democratic League concluded that the best democracy for China would be a democracy incorporating both “Soviet economic democracy” and “British-American political democracy.”9 In attempting to bring into being such a government, the report enthusiastically endorsed the notion of a coalition government and outlined specific measures to create a national assembly and proceed with the writing of a new constitution.10 Similar ideas were expressed in other democratic parties. In 1946, for example, Shi Fuliang, a well-known professor, editor, economist, and businessman—and founding member of the China Democratic National Construction Association (CDNCA or Minjian)—wrote at some length about the “middle forces.” As Shi described them, they were simply advocates of political democracy and economic progress. To elaborate, Shi observed that the democrats embraced American and European constitutional forms, opposed one-party rule, and cherished liberty, but they were concerned as well with the domination of society by minority special interests. They resisted any kind of foreign domination and refused to be a pawn in the emerging conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. They opposed any rebirth of Japanese aggression and supported anticolonial national liberation movements around the world.11

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Standing between the Nationalists and Communists, the middle forces, Shi maintained, could work with both parties, but they also developed and propagated their own policies and programmes. On the economic front, the middle forces promoted the development of China’s national capitalism, but not without improving the miserable conditions faced by workers and peasants. Socialism might someday come to predominate the Chinese economy, but it would have to be postponed until the distant future when conditions of scarcity had been eliminated. For Shi, the task of the middle forces at this pivotal time was to unite their component organizations and assert their collective power as representatives of the broad masses who stood between the Nationalists and Communists.12 These democratic organizations, and Shi Fuliang himself, actively participated in the Political Consultative Conference in January of 1946 and in the drafting of the historic resolutions passed at that meeting; furthermore, through the media, lectures, and open forums, they created broad public opinion for peace and democracy, concretely demonstrated by the mobilization of tens of thousands of people in a variety of peace protests throughout the year. Among the sharpest examples of the potential influence of liberals was the October initiative by the so-called “Third Party Group” that valiantly, if ultimately in vain, attempted to bring the warring sides together in the “last chance for peace.”13 This history of activism suggests that Marshall’s hopes for the liberals were not merely the result of his political naïvité—nor, as one scholar has opined, the result of his “simply trying to do what he could to strengthen their hand . . . without imagining that it would do much good.”14 Such conclusions slighting the liberals appear be the result of historical hindsight, for at the time, these “democratic parties and personages” were not so easily dismissed. No less a source than CCP leader Zhou Enlai himself maintained in early 1948 that “for a time, thanks to the War of Resistance and especially to the Political Consultative Conference, the Democratic League was objectively the third national party.” Zhou concluded that only with the League’s dissolution in October of 1947, ten months after Marshall’s farewell statement, did the “movement for a third national party [end] in failure and the idea of a ‘third road’ [become] bankrupt.”15 In the political milieu of China in January 1947, the liberals, weakened though they may have been by divisiveness over their participation in the National Assembly, nevertheless constituted a genuine middle force between the Communists and the Nationalists. Their allegiance was crucial to each side: the support of the middle forces precluded political isolation.


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Thus, the real problem with Marshall’s plan for constitutional democracy was not that it relied too heavily on liberals, but instead that it continued to support the Nationalist government “under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek,” a leadership that had demonstrated repeatedly its resolve to achieve national unity by military subjugation of the Communists rather than by political coalition with them.16 American policy was apparently unable to recognize—or to overcome—this fundamental contradiction. On the one hand, Washington continued to delude itself, even as the civil war raged all around, with its insistence that Chiang still preferred a political to a military settlement; on the other hand, the American embrace of Chiang was a logical response to three very real concerns for the United States: first, Chiang appeared to be the only figure strong enough to hold together the fractious, cliqueridden Nationalist Party; second, Chiang willingly facilitated the expansion of U.S. economic interests in China; and third, Chiang unhesitatingly opposed communism, and this trait could not be overlooked as the Cold War deepened. Yet Marshall’s new policy continued to press for a liberal government in China—with Chiang at the helm—based on a democratic constitution derived from the principles established by the PCC one year earlier. In a speech delivered on December 18, 1946, President Truman had upheld the agreements of the PCC, in particular the calls for a constitutional, coalition government and for the reorganization of the military.17 Marshall’s “Final Statement” not only echoed Truman’s stance, but also went so far as to proclaim that the basis for constitutional rule had already been established. In Marshall’s view, the constitution drafted by the National Assembly met his democratic criteria. His opinion apparently was not altered by the fact that the PCC resolutions had specifically designated that a committee of twenty-five be selected to review the draft constitution, including five representatives from the Communist Party and five from the Democratic League, two organizations that were not involved in the assembly’s undertakings.18 Marshall’s farewell statement affirmed the new constitution with the following words: The National Assembly has adopted a democratic constitution which in all major respects is in accordance with the principles laid down by the allparty Political Consultative Conference of last January. It is unfortunate that the Communists did not see fit to participate in the Assembly since the

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C H I N A ' S I N E V I TA B L E R E V O L U T I O N constitution that has been adopted seems to include every major point they wanted.19

Having assumed that the CCP, and presumably the Democratic League as well, would have supported the document, Marshall was satisfied that, with this constitution, “the form for a democratic China has been laid down.”20 Nevertheless, Marshall warned, the real test of democracy lay ahead in the practical enforcement of the constitution, especially in elections and government reorganization. Marshall emphasized that “the manner in which this [the enforcement of the constitution] is done and the amount of representation accorded to liberals and non-Guomindang members will be significant.”21 He hoped the door would be left open “for the Communists or other groups to participate,”22 based no doubt in part on his view that members of the CCP included liberals as well as radicals: “It has appeared to me that there is a definite liberal group among the Communists, especially of young men who have turned to the Communists in disgust at the corruption evident in the local governments—men who would put the interests of the Chinese people above ruthless measures to establish a Communist ideology in the immediate future.”23 Marshall thus acknowledged GMD corruption that alienated the liberals, but he deflected criticism away from Chiang Kai-shek and the top echelons of the Nationalist Party. It was the corruption of “local governments” that drove liberals to the Communist side. But if Marshall had specific liberal members of the CCP in mind, he did not name them.

T HE C OMMUNIST R ESPONSE TO M ARSHALL’ S N EW P OLICY The Chinese Communist Party, however, was anything but receptive to the National Assembly, its new constitution, and Marshall’s “Final Statement.” Just three days after the “Final Statement” was issued—on January 10, the first anniversary of the original truce—Zhou Enlai, the chief negotiator for the CCP during the Marshall Mission, broadcast a strongly worded speech from the Communist capital of Yan’an, addressing the issues raised by Marshall. Zhou began with a comment on Marshall’s initial success in China, the cease-fire. He claimed that having mediated a cease-fire order, Marshall never again mentioned it. “This was not just a slip of his memory,” Zhou asserted. Rather, it was proof “that the U.S.government [had] been helping Chiang to extend the civil war.”24


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Zhou acknowledged the truth of Marshall’s findings that there was indeed a reactionary group within the GMD that stood opposed to coalition government, the PCC resolutions, and anything other than a military solution to China’s current crisis. “But what is to be regretted,” Zhou added, “is that he [Marshall] did not point out that Chiang Kai-shek is the leader of this reactionary group.”25 Zhou backed up this contention, reciting a litany of Chiang’s violations of the cease-fire; similarly, he listed numerous violations of the PCC resolutions in the convening of the National Assembly and in the constitution it approved.26 If Marshall truly thought that the constitution seemed to “meet the demands” of the CCP, then he was out of touch with the party’s current thinking. Contrary to Marshall’s assessment, Zhou minced no words in decreeing, “The dictatorial constitution adopted by Chiang’s private ‘National Assembly’ runs counter to the principles of the [Political Consultative] Conference in all major respects.”27 The document was, among other things, “pervaded with the idea of centralization of power.” Marshall’s call for the enforcement of the constitution and the reorganization of the government, Zhou thus concluded, was nothing more than a call for “prolonging Chiang’s dictatorship.”28 Zhou’s response to Marshall’s call for liberal leadership in the new government revealed the CCP determination to take up the challenge to vie for the middle forces as follows: General Marshall thinks that this rotten government, still headed by the same Chiang Kai-shek, can suddenly be transformed into a good one by reshuffling it to include a few so-called liberals belonging to the Guomindang and a few others belonging to a couple of parties such as the Youth Party and the Democratic-Socialist Party. . . . Unfortunately, good government doesn’t come so cheaply. A coalition government that excludes the Communist Party can never put an end to Chiang Kai-shek’s autocracy, and it can never be a liberal government.29

Zhou’s comments seem to have been addressed specifically to liberals.30 In direct response to Marshall, he declared that the new policy was misguided. He reiterated the Communists’ oft-stated position that the recent “illegal” National Assembly and its “bogus” constitution had done nothing to vitiate Chiang’s autocratic rule. The government’s “reforms” thus held no promise for true democrats. Just as significant as this direct reply, however, was the indirect message to the liberals in this passage. Zhou did not see fit to respond to Marshall’s suggestion that the CCP was composed of both liberals and radicals; there

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was no denial of this claim to parallel the vehement denials of others of Marshall’s assertions in his “Final Statement.” Further, Zhou’s last comment in the paragraph—that without Communist participation, a liberal government could not be formed—implied that the CCP remained supportive of just such a government. Both points suggest that Zhou was seeking to avoid driving any wedges between the CCP and the liberal middle forces. The overall tone of Zhou’s address conveyed the Communist Party’s confidence that Marshall’s plan to liberalize the Chiang-led government would fail. Certainly, that confidence was buoyed at that very moment by the rapidly spreading student movement gripping Chiang’s urban strongholds, a movement targeting the United States itself.

T HE A NTI -A MERICAN ATROCITY M OVEMENT Zhou Enlai’s response to Marshall’s “Final Statement” took note of the following events shaking the country at that moment: “In all the big cities of China hundreds of thousands of students and the population in general [have begun] to shout such slogans as ‘U.S. troops, get out of China!’ ‘Oppose U.S. intervention in China’s internal affairs!’ ‘Oppose servile diplomacy!’ and ‘Oppose the Sino-American Treaty of Commerce!’”31 The event triggering the movement was the Christmas Eve 1946 assault and rape of a nineteen-year-old Chinese woman in Beiping by two American marines.32 Such “liberties” taken by U.S. soldiers stationed in China after the war had been commonplace,33 but had rarely been reported in the censored GMD press.34 However in this case, the young woman, named Shen Chong, came from a well-respected family and

Figure 2-B Students respond to the rape of a Peking University student by a U.S. soldier with demands that American troops get out of China.


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Figure 2-C The Anti-American Atrocity Association mobilized some 500,000 protesters in massive demonstrations throughout China against the U.S. military presence.

studied at one of China’s most prestigious schools, Peking University. After she reported the rape to police authorities, news of the assault filtered into the Chinese press over the next several days. The incident became the tinder that caused a smoldering resentment against the American presence in China to burst into flames. Despite the fact that the campuses at Peking University and Tsinghua University had only recently reopened after returning from their wartime refuge in the Southwestern city of Kunming, students, with the support of the CCP,35 quickly took action. At PKU, the Preparatory Committee of Peking University Students Protesting the Brutality of American Military Personnel was formed. At Tsinghua, the Student Self-Government Association mobilized the protest. Petitions circulated enumerating the following three demands: (1) a trial of the accused in a joint ChineseAmerican court, (2) a public apology from U.S. military officials, and (3) the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from China.36 On December 30, students throughout the city boycotted classes, and some five thousand joined in a protest march, shouting anti-American slogans. Within weeks, this Anti-American Atrocity Movement had spread to more than twenty cities in China, from Tianjin to Guangzhou (Canton), from Taibei (Taipei) to Kunming. Led by a growing nationwide network of student organizers, an estimated five hundred thousand students participated in strikes and demonstrations associated with this movement.

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The politics of the Anti-American Atrocity Movement transcended the issue of the rape of Shen Chong, brutal as it was. Rather, the rape was seen as a symptom of a much larger problem, the intensifying civil war. Broad sentiment maintained that American troops had no reason to be in China except to provide support for the Nationalist side in the conflict with the Communists. In the eyes of the politically active middle forces, all this American support for Chiang Kai-shek outweighed American pronouncements of opposition to civil war. To be sure, the United States had sent two mediation missions to China after the defeat of Japan, the second of which had yielded the welcome results of the Political Consultative Conference. Moreover, the Marshall Mission had helped secure two ceasefires. Furthermore, American consular officials had even sheltered and assisted Democratic League leaders whose lives had been endangered by Guomindang violence during 1946.37 But none of these actions mitigated the fact that the American commitment to the GMD and American troop presence in support of GMD forces emboldened Chiang to attempt a military, rather than a political, solution to the conflict between China’s two major parties. If the United States were to withdraw its military personnel and cut off aid to the Nationalists, the middle forces reasoned,then the civil war might end. The Democratic League clearly interpreted the assault on Shen Chong in these broader terms.38 The League proclaimed, It is certainly no common rape incident, nor is it simply a legal problem. Rather it is the behavior of imperialists trampling on a colonized people. Unless we are willing to be slaves of a foreign power, we cannot tolerate this kind of behavior that humiliates the nation. . . . Every day that passes without American forces leaving is another day that this kind of atrocity cannot be stopped.39

The League further supported the widespread protests as “a great mass movement of the Chinese people against civil war and for peace.”40 The DL went so far as to declare the movement to be the “true foundation” and “glorious future” of Chinese peace and democracy.41 The Central Committee of the League joined the movement by launching a petition campaign demanding the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from China. In such an atmosphere, Zhou Enlai and the Communist Party could well afford to denounce the new U.S. policy announced by Marshall. The Chinese people’s resentment of America was on the rise. The grounds


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upon which the United States could assist the GMD in attracting middle forces to lead the new government appeared shaky indeed. In sum, the CCP’s initial response to the new U.S. policy of support for the liberal middle forces as influential members of a “democratized” Nationalist government was to minimize the policy’s potential for success while simultaneously taking action to assure its failure, first by claiming for the Communist Party itself the role of advocate of liberal interests, and second by building an anti-American protest movement. Representing liberal concerns had been a long-standing role assumed by the CCP within the framework of its New Democratic united front; organizing opposition to the United States was a more recent undertaking. But these two tasks took on still greater significance to the party’s efforts among the middle forces in light of the Communists’ new analysis of the international situation.

N EW Y EAR ’ S , 1947: CCP ON THE I NTERNATIONAL S ITUATION AND THE M IDDLE F ORCES Even as Marshall was closing the book on his mission to China, Lu Dingyi, the CCP information chief, made public his New Year’s memorandum entitled, “Explanation of Several Basic Questions Concerning the Postwar International Situation.” Addressed to “people in the camp of democracy” (including “some Communists, some left-wing critics, some middle of the road critics”), 42 this theoretical statement not only affirmed the party’s commitment to win over and unite with the middle forces, but also placed this effort in the context of a global analysis that in many ways presaged the major Soviet policy shift marked by Andrei Zhdanov’s speech at the founding convention of the Communist Information Bureau—or Cominform—nine months later, identifying the U.S. imperialists as the main enemy of the progressive peoples of the world.43 Lu’s analysis was based on Mao Zedong’s influential political report of April 1945 “On Coalition Government.” Mao had predicted in that statement that the postwar world would still be divided into “democratic” and “antidemocratic” forces, a view consonant with contemporary currents within the world Communist movement that, since 1935, had identified the chasm between democracy and fascism as the primary fault line in international politics. But Mao had taken this argument one step farther by asserting that not only would the remnant forces of fascism continue to make trouble, but also that antidemocratic forces existed within the

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antifascist camp, and that these elements would “continue to oppress the people.”44 Lu elaborated on Mao’s analysis by identifying “U.S. imperialists” as chief among the antidemocratic forces in the antifascist camp: After World War II, the American imperialists took the place of fascist Germany, Italy and Japan and became the fortress of the world’s reactionary forces. These reactionary forces are precisely the American imperialists with the addition of reactionaries in various countries (China’s Chiang Kai-shek, Great Britain’s Churchill, France’s DeGaulle, etc.) and other fascist remnants (Spain’s Franco Government, Japan’s Yoshida cabinet, Germany’s von Papen and Schacht, etc.) The reactionaries and fascist remnants of all countries have now all become traitors, directly or indirectly supported and protected by the American imperialists, selling out the people of all countries.45

In what way were the people being “sold out”? Lu maintained that within the capitalist countries, people were demanding democratic rights; similarly, within the colonies and semicolonies, people were demanding independence and autonomy. In response to these demands, he noted that “the line being taken by reactionaries like Churchill and DeGaulle . . . is to rely on America to oppose the democratic movement of the people of their own country and the independence movement of the peoples of the colonies and semicolonies.”46 The dominant contradiction in the world at that moment, Lu reasoned, was therefore not between the Soviet Union and the United States, though he observed, “It is one of the basic contradictions.” Rather, the contradiction was between “U.S. aggressors” and “democratic peoples” throughout the world. Amplifying on remarks Chairman Mao had made several months earlier in an interview with a American journalist,47 Lu stressed that the current talk of the imminence of World War III between America and the Soviet Union was but a “smokescreen” behind which the United States was extending its reach into colonies, semicolonies, and even other capitalist countries to consolidate its control of the world.48 But Lu noted that resistance to this “U.S. aggression” was mounting, presenting every reason for optimism. The forces opposing the American imperialists included a vast array of people, not only workers and peasants, but even patriotic and peace-loving elements of the bourgeoisie.49 Lu proceeded to issue a call for an international united front, a front “opposing U.S. imperialism and all its running dogs, struggling for world peace and democracy and for national independence.” China’s own movements for independence, peace and democracy, Lu observed, were an important


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element in this united front.50 The growing strength of this democratic front, along with the increasing stature of the Soviet Union and the impending economic crisis of American imperialism that the CCP anticipated, would result within three to five years, Lu concluded, in a “vastly different face for China and the rest of the world.”51 Several noteworthy conclusions may be drawn from Lu’s New Year’s message. First, the CCP determined that it was important to address the “pessimistic contentions” of its critics, including the “middle of the road” critics. The Guomindang’s military advances and its political maneuvers, especially in pressing forward to convene the National Assembly and draft a constitution in disregard of the PCC accords, had left many in despair of achieving peace and democracy. American approval of these developments, indirectly or directly, only contributed to the hopelessness of the situation. To these people, the bleak prospects of a Chiang-led regime supported by the United States translated into a search for a modus vivendi with the Nationalists. Thus, even before Marshall’s “Final Statement” raised the stakes, the CCP had recognized the importance of striving to reenergize the middle forces by offering a more promising picture of the country’s political possibilities. Second, “U.S. imperialism” was singled out as the “fortress” of world reaction, and struggle was to be directed against this enemy, its “reactionary” allies, and fascist remnants. No longer was America to be seen as a force for democracy in the world, as an ally against reaction. It was wrong for Communists—like those in Japan at the current time—to rely on the United States to lead the democratic revolution against “feudal remnants” in their countries.52 In China, it was wrong to rely on the United States to oppose domestic reactionaries, in particular Chiang Kaishek and his right-wing cohorts. Third, although the identification of “U.S. imperialism” as the enemy of the world’s “democratic peoples” may have contained revolutionary implications, the article never specifically advocated revolution. Other than the support it offered to independence movements in colonies and semicolonies—movements that presumably may have necessitated the utilization of revolutionary means—the document only supported democratic and social reform, not revolution, in capitalist countries. Democratic forces even included “enlightened members of the bourgeoisie,” represented in America by third-party presidential candidate Henry Wallace.53 The emphasis on the unity of democratic forces in a “world-wide united front” was a reflection of the continued dominance of the concept of the “popular front against fascism” advanced by the Comintern in response to Hitler’s rise in Europe more a decade earlier.

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The striking departure from the past in this new analysis lay in its fingering of the United States as the bastion of world reaction and in its placing of the GMD and other formerly “democratic” allies in the enemy camp. Relations with both these forces would require struggle, not cooperation. While Mao and the CCP had certainly identified the United States as untrustworthy—even imperialist—in earlier postwar pronouncements, Lu’s statement reflected the sharpening of the conflict between the Communists and the American-backed Nationalists in China, and between “the democratic peoples” and U.S.-backed “reactionaries” throughout the world. Implicit in the analysis was not simply a united front against fascism, but also a united front against imperialism. The Chinese Communists had long been among the most sensitive—and hostile—to imperialism of any parties in the international Communist movement,54 and now they were breaking ground in the postwar period for a new approach to the worldwide united front. Always mindful of possible cracks in the enemy’s veneer of strength, however, the New Year’s message offered a broad definition of “democratic forces,” allowing considerable maneuvering room to seek allies from among the “enlightened” elements within that enemy camp. To weaken the reactionary forces and strengthen the progressive forces—to force fissures and drive the wedges deeper—considerable effort would have to be expended to win over the all-important middle forces, whose support or opposition could be decisive to the outcome.

M AO Z EDONG ’ S E LABORATION Several weeks after Lu’s memorandum was published, Mao Zedong brought these international issues to bear on China’s domestic situation, offering his own response to the issues raised by Marshall’s “Final Statement.” In an intraparty directive dated February 1, 1947, Mao proved less reticent than Lu to talk of revolution, as he laid out concrete guidance for the immediate period ahead. “We are now on the eve of . . . revolution,” Mao declared in the opening paragraph.55 Pointing to the recent military successes of the PLA (Mao cited figures that more than a quarter of the Nationalists’ 218 brigades that had attacked the Communist “liberated areas” had been wiped out) and to the vast popular movements in the GMD areas (especially the mass mobilization of students against the United States in response to the Beiping rape case),


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Mao predicted success for the revolution.56 In order to achieve this success, however, the party would have to continue to build a “very broad united front of the whole nation,” including “workers, peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie, national bourgeoisie, enlightened gentry, other patriotic elements, the minority nationalities, and overseas Chinese”—all of whom would unite in response to the “reactionary policies of U.S. imperialism and Chiang Kai-shek.” Programmatically, Mao reaffirmed the applicability of the “three-thirds system” in the liberated areas, staffing political organs with roughly equal proportions of Communists, left progressives, and middle elements. “In addition to Communists,” Mao directed, “we should continue to draw the broad ranks of progressives outside the Party and the middle elements (such as the enlightened gentry) into organs of political power and into social undertakings.”57 Mao specifically addressed the issues that Marshall had emphasized as the basis for a unified, democratic China: the National Assembly, the constitution, and the liberal middle forces. He defended as “perfectly correct” the decision made by the CCP and other “democratic forces” to refuse to participate in the “illegal and divisive ‘National Assembly,’” which had “fabricated” a “bogus constitution.” Rather than isolating the Communists, the National Assembly, Mao averred, had served to isolate the GMD “ruling clique” itself. So far, Chiang had won over only the Youth Party and the Democratic Socialist Party, organizations described by Mao, in an obvious attempt to discredit them, as “two small parties which never had the slightest prestige in Chinese society.”58 It was likely, Mao conceded, that “some of the middle-of-the-roaders may also go over to the side of reaction,” but such a result was only to be expected amid the increasing polarization of Chinese society. As to the balance of forces, however, he maintained that “the democratic forces are getting stronger and stronger while the reactionary forces are becoming more and more isolated.”59 The implication was clear: the majority of the liberal middle forces could, and would, become allies to the Communist cause. In February of 1947, therefore, Mao shared the confidence expressed by Zhou Enlai three weeks earlier that the new U.S. policy to organize the liberals had little chance for success. Moreover, Mao’s statement, which at several points appeared to be a direct answer to Marshall, offered concrete guidance as to how the CCP should properly mobilize the middle forces to build the united front. In spite of the primacy of military matters at this point in the Chinese civil war, Mao felt compelled to take additional steps to meet the challenge posed by Marshall’s call to the

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liberals—a call pursued vigorously by Marshall’s successor in the American embassy in Nanjing.

A MBASSADOR J OHN L EIGHTON S TUART: I NITIAL E FFORTS TO I MPLEMENT THE N EW P OLICY With the departure of Marshall to Washington to assume his new duties as secretary of state, the Truman administration named a new ambassador to China, John Leighton Stuart, entrusting him with the task of implementing Marshall’s policy. Born in the former dynastic capital of Hangzhou in 1874 to missionary parents, Stuart had long experience in China. After receiving an education in the United States, he married and returned to China to follow in his parents’ footsteps as a Presbyterian missionary. He went on to serve for years as president of one of the premier Americansponsored educational institutions in China, Yenching (Yanjing) University,

Figure 2-D Carrying out Marshall’s new policy for China was left largely in the hands of Ambassador John Leighton Stuart, shown here in 1946. Source: Courtesy of George C. Marshall Foundation.


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built on the grounds of a former imperial garden in northwest-suburban Beiping. Stuart appeared to be extremely well qualified for the embassy post, having developed close personal ties with many of the most influential academics—and liberal activists—in China. It would have been difficult to imagine a better candidate to carry out Marshall’s new policy. Stuart and Chiang Kai-shek responded to Marshall’s “Final Statement” by issuing in mid-January an invitation to the Communists to resume talks. The Nationalist position was quite clear; the basis for the negotiations was twofold: the new constitution and the plans for government reorganization passed by the National Assembly, both of which the GMD, like Marshall, claimed to be in keeping with the PCC resolutions of the previous year. The “violations” of the PCC accords cited by Zhou Enlai the week before were not addressed.60 The CCP answered the invitation by indicating its willingness to negotiate on two conditions, both based on adherence to the original wording of the PCC resolutions: first, that the constitution be annulled; and, second, that the original cease-fire order of January 1946 be honored, with Nationalist troops evacuating all the territory of the liberated areas they had occupied since that date.61 These terms were unacceptable to the GMD, and to the United States as well; too much had changed in the wake of the massive troop deployment and military campaigns over the past year. At loggerheads over the conditions for negotiations, the two sides wrangled for a few weeks but broke off talks by the end of February.

T HE T RUMAN D OCTRINE , C HINA , AND THE P RO -C HIANG F ORCES WITHIN THE U NITED S TATES It was not long before the newly adopted United States' China policy received a further jolt. On March 12, the Truman administration, just as the CCP had done in January, publicly announced a major new foreign relations analysis and policy shift. Reflecting the growing cold war tensions, Truman declared America’s determination to draw the line against the spread of communism. Although this “Truman Doctrine” was intended to apply to Europe, not Asia, GMD and pro-GMD political forces in China and in the United States (the so-called “China Lobby”) nevertheless seized on the rhetoric to push for increased aid and support for Chiang. After all, they asked, who in the world was more deeply engaged in Truman’s “crusade” against communism than Chiang and his military forces?

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A key figure shaping American public opinion in support of Chiang Kai-shek was the publisher of Time and Life magazines, Henry Luce. Like Stuart, Luce was born in China to missionary parents, and as he grew up, he developed a passion for the country. This passion, though based on his self-admitted ignorance of China’s social “inner workings,”62 ultimately translated into a close relationship with Chiang during World War II and after. Throughout the war, Luce’s magazines had served American interests with their heroic portrayal of not only the U.S. armed forces and their allies but also of individual GIs in action around the globe, with articles and photographs so compelling that the circulation of Life alone reached nearly twenty million readers each week.63 Luce’s work won him open access to American leaders in high places—within the halls of Congress, the U.S. military, and the State Department. Even those leaders who disagreed or were hostile to his ideas found him a political force not to be ignored.64 With his wife Claire, a Connecticut Republican who was elected to the House of Representatives during the war, Henry Luce would serve as a cornerstone of the emerging “China Lobby.” Through Henry’s magazines and Claire’s speeches and radio addresses, the Luces regularly provided the American people information and images of China, filtered through a lens that glorified Chiang Kai-shek and his government of “Free China.”65 During the war, for example, Luce had brought the attractive and eloquent Madame Chiang (Song Meiling) to the United States to plead the Nationalist cause before Congress and the American people. He had supported the Generalissimo in his demand for the removal of Stilwell from his command in China, and he had provided flattering coverage in Time of “Vinegar Joe’s” replacement, Albert Wedemeyer. When Chiang came under attack from liberals in the United States who accused him of being a fascist dictator, Henry Luce had risen in the Generalissimo’s defense.66 Aware of the controversy over Chiang’s one-party rule, Luce summed up his position in a memo as follows: “We at Time, Inc. recognize Chiang as the head of China. We favor the liberalization of his regime. We will not be party to any attempt to overthrow him. We believe in aiding him, and wish to create a China ‘free of foreign domination.’”67 Historian Richard Herzstein has noted, “Of course, to Luce, the U.S. presence could not smack of ‘domination.’”68 And in this regard, Luce was not alone: American policy makers in general did not see any of their actions as forms of domination. What is striking about Luce’s memo, then, is how, both in its support of reform under the leadership of Chiang and in its presumption that U.S. actions in China bore no implications of


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domination, the statement so closely coincided with official American policy and thinking at the time. Of course, this policy of promotion and patronage of Chiang was not without its critics in the United States. There was a strong sentiment among the American people after Japan’s surrender to “bring all the boys home.” There were voices on the left that wanted to sever ties with Chiang’s dictatorial regime. There was an isolationist current that demanded that the United States withdraw from foreign entanglements. And there were those, like John Carter Vincent at the State Department’s Far East desk, who simply thought that U.S. military support for Chiang would neither break up the Communist Party nor avoid armed conflict.69 The most important U.S. decision makers in late 1945, however, were Secretary of State James Byrnes and President Truman. While Byrnes had recognized the opportunity at the end of the Hurley Mission to withdraw U.S. forces from China, he had argued that such a move would undercut America’s credibility as a reliable ally in other parts of Asia, and in Europe as well.70 Although Byrnes’ position that the United States should maintain its military presence in China and provide Chiang with massive amounts of aid and logistical support had not won the approval of the liberals and isolationists, Luce and the China Lobby made the policy appear moderate nevertheless. Even as Byrnes had been elucidating his position, Claire Boothe Luce had gone before her fellow members of Congress to level charges of “proCommunist intrigue in the State Department” and to launch into a Redbaiting diatribe against a fellow congressman.71 In both cases, Luce was motivated by hostility toward anyone in Washington who voiced opposition to Chiang and his government. It is true that both Claire and Henry Luce tempered their stridency over the next several months as Marshall managed to continue support for Chiang and simultaneously broker peace during the early phase of his mission.72 But when the civil war that dashed Marshall’s peace initiative broke out in the late summer of 1946, Luce’s Time lavished praise on Chiang for his military successes and his verbal commitment to democracy; at the same time, the magazine excoriated Mao for his alleged commitment to dictatorship.73 In spite of his zeal to enlist American support of Chiang Kai-shek, it was difficult, however, for Henry Luce to ignore the observations from all quarters that Chiang’s regime in practice was corrupt and failing to live up to its democratic ideal. Nor could he disregard American public opinion, which was deadset against military intervention in China. Moreover, Luce was indisposed to dismiss the significant number of his magazines’ readers who had apparently grown weary of Time and Life’s bias in favor of the

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Generalissimo.74 Taking these concerns into consideration and attempting to balance them with his own predilections about the situation in China, Luce came to the following conclusion: he would concede that the Nationalist government suffered from corruption, but he would identify two other sources as the cause of China’s current malaise, the Communists and insufficient U.S. aid.75 Anti-Communism and increased assistance to Chiang thus became the essence of Luce’s—and the rest of the China Lobby’s—program of action. At the conclusion of the Marshall Mission, Henry Luce met with John Leighton Stuart to talk about their mutual concern that the Truman administration might at this juncture end its support of Chiang. Both agreed that even if reform of the Guomindang failed to materialize, assistance to Chiang should continue; Stuart even thought that Washington should consider the possibility of deploying American troops in the field to sustain the Nationalist military effort.76 While Stuart later came to understand that the American public would not allow for a major military intervention in China, Luce continued in the pages of Time to take a position that coincided with Chiang’s own stance: only by military victory over the Communists could China be unified. This short-term goal of unification under the friendly regime of Chiang Kai-shek took on deep significance for Luce because it meant the fulfillment of his long-cherished dream: the opening of the vast China market for American business. The assertive, anti-Communist foreign policy Luce promoted was to make that dream of open markets a reality throughout a world now delineated by Soviet-American rivalry.77 For all Luce’s aggressiveness, however, the anti-Communist passions he fanned (and the resultant increase in Chiang’s requests for military and economic assistance) represented more of a quantitative than a qualitative change. The GMD had engaged in the long-standing practice of seeking U.S. aid, and the aid had been offered in no small part on the basis of Chiang’s anti-Communism. To be sure, Luce railed at Truman’s step-bystep withdrawal of American troops from China (the numbers had been reduced to twelve thousand by the end of 1946, which was far too few for Luce, yet far too many for the Chinese students and others then demonstrating against U.S. atrocities), and his magazines dismissed as “stupidity” Marshall’s ongoing call for a coalition government as he left China.78 But by February of 1947, Time would conclude that the United States was presented with only three choices in China, to “drift along; withdraw completely from the Chinese imbroglio; or aid Chiang, so long as he continued his ‘reforms.’”79 The magazine embraced the last of these options.


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Once again, just as at the end of the Hurley Mission, Luce’s views at the end of the Marshall Mission came to coincide with the official policy of the United States. Ironically, although President Truman and his new Secretary of State Marshall had by that time developed a fractious relationship with Luce because of his attacks from the right, they would continue to pursue the basic policy of anti-Communism and support for Chiang that was at the core of Luce’s position. Over the next two years, the State Department would time and again repeat Luce’s mantra, “aid Chiang, so long as he continues his reforms.” Moreover, just as Luce and Stuart had agreed in late 1946, the “reform” condition in this mantra could be overlooked: the sine qua non was support for Chiang. While U.S. military commitment to China may have fallen short of Luce’s hopes, the growing anti-Communist wind in the United States would result in early 1948 in Truman and Marshall’s rejection of coalition government, just as Luce had wanted. In many ways, the conservative American right-wing forces represented by Luce should have been able to find some satisfaction in U.S. policy. It was more a testament to the divisiveness of American politics rather than to serious policy differences that, as the situation for Chiang and his Nationalist government deteriorated over the next two years, the right would not hesitate to point accusing fingers at the Truman administration for doing too little to save “Free China.” Thus it was that the cold war battle lines had already been drawn in China before March of 1947 and the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine. The February talks had broken down between the Nationalists and the Communists, and a negotiated settlement seemed more remote than ever before. On the Communist side, Lu Dingyi’s statement had already labeled “U.S. imperialism” as the world’s fortress of reaction, as the prop behind China’s “arch-reactionary” Chiang Kai-shek, and as the enemy of the world’s democratic forces. In the estimation of the CCP, moreover, these democratic forces were advancing with “the sympathy and moral support of . . . the most progressive country in the world—the socialist Soviet Union.”80 Although the specific language of “two camps”—the imperialist camp (led by the United States), and the socialist camp (led by the USSR)—did not appear in CCP writings until after the September 1947 convention of the Cominform in Moscow, the outlines of this later formulation were clearly evident already in Lu’s January report.81 For the CCP, China’s middle forces would be a major component in building the democratic united front that would triumph over reaction and U.S. imperialism. On the American side, the established policy to support the anti-Communist Chiang Kai-shek while urging reform of his Nationalist government was reaffirmed. Marshall’s new policy to

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promote the liberals as a lever for progressive change in that government embodied America’s best hope of salvaging the waning legitimacy of Chiang’s corrupt and authoritarian regime. With the battle lines drawn, the question remained as to which side, the United States (on behalf of the Nationalist Party) or the Chinese Communist Party, would, in the course of the political developments that ensued, win over the democratic middle forces. The massive political protests during 1947 and the related fate of the liberal Democratic League would soon provide an important part of the answer.

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T H E M I D D L E F O R C E S I N C H I N A’ S U R B A N T U R M O I L , 1947

The chasm between the Communists and Nationalists in China widened

throughout 1947 as both economic and political conditions in the country deteriorated. Although GMD China had suffered inflation during 1946 at a rate of 12 percent per month, in early 1947, Shanghai moneymarket speculators created a still more serious crisis as the price of the U.S. dollar more than doubled in relation to the Chinese national currency.1 The economic crisis led to severe hardships among the people in Nationalist territories. By May, spectacular increases in the price of rice and merchants’ unwillingness to sell their accumulated stocks led to an outbreak, in the U.S. embassy’s words, of a “series of relatively minor but potentially dangerous rice riots.”2 The conditions sharply affected a politically volatile sector of the urban population, the students. As one historian has described the situation, “In the academic community, some students lacked sufficient food and clothing and even had to abandon studies because they could not afford school expenses. Professors’ salaries were greatly reduced as a result of inflation, and a few of them even committed suicide because of poverty.”3 Anger with the government had already escalated in the wake of widespread police repression, including house-to-house searches and mass arrests, following the upsurge in antiAmerican protests in February.4 These worsening economic and political conditions only increased the intensity of opposition. The Anti-American Atrocity Association, formed in January to coordinate the mass protests of the Beiping rape incident, continued its work through the spring. It played a leading role in a large student demonstration

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in Shanghai held on the twenty-eighth anniversary of the watershed antiimperialist protests of 1919, the May Fourth Movement.5 Raising slogans of “food, peace, freedom” and “against hunger, against civil war, against persecution,” the demonstrations spread to all the major academic centers in China.6 Students were joined by university faculty members and a number of workers, as well.7 The protesters targeted both the GMD and the U.S. government. Ambassador Stuart bemoaned the broad attacks on American policy as follows: “There is throughout an undertone of antiAmerican feeling, the radicals blaming us for allowing the Government to continue the civil war, the loyalists for our apparent indifference to the national danger.”8 Defying the government ban on demonstrations that was issued on May 18, demonstrators two days later marched on the National Assembly Hall in Nanjing and were set upon by the police. Over one hundred students were wounded or arrested.9 In the course of the nationwide upsurge, thousands more were arrested, and students in Wuhan and Beiping were killed by authorities.10 This massive explosion of protest, centered among China’s urban intellectuals, led Mao Zedong to conclude on May 30, “There are now two

Figure 3-A The spring of 1947 witnessed a fresh outbreak of protests as the anti-hunger, anti–civil war movement spread. Among the banners are signs simply stating, “I want to eat!”

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battle fronts in China,” the first between the GMD and CCP armies in the liberated areas, and the second between the Chiang government and the “great and righteous student movement.”11 In declaring the opening of this new battlefront, Mao emphasized the broad nature of the united front that would bring together “the whole people” and “all strata” against the “Chiang Kai-shek clique and its master, U.S. imperialism.”12 In emphasizing the importance of this united front, Mao also made special note of the impact of the economic crisis not only on the working masses, but also on the indigenous small capitalists, government employees, and teachers— important middle forces in the Chinese political arena.13

A MERICA’ S R ESPONSE TO THE N ATIONALIST C RISIS : L IBERAL R EFORM —O NCE A GAIN The United States was not simply “indifferent to the national danger” China faced at this time, as the loyalist critics had charged. On the contrary, Ambassador Stuart had been working very hard to encourage the reorganization of the Executive Yuan and State Council of the Nationalist government, changes that Stuart hoped “would result in the emergence of liberal elements to positions of leadership, the lessening of influence of the reactionary group and the carrying out of basic measures of reform.”14 Stuart faced no shortage of obstacles in his quest for reorganization. First, the Nationalists had been steadily losing their prestige in the eyes of the people. Lacking popular support, the GMD was even being shunned by its minority party allies, the Youth Party and the Democratic Socialists, both of whom were fearful of being associated with a government collapse. More significantly, the Democratic League had taken the same stance as the Communist Party in not only refusing to participate in the National Assembly but also in rejecting the assembly’s new constitution as an affirmation of centralized political rule and an attack on individual rights. Adding to the government’s isolation, an additional eleven selfdescribed “democratic” or “people’s” organizations, including the China Democratic National Construction Association (Minjian), the Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy (Minjin), and the September 3 Study Society, had similarly declared publicly in a joint statement that the constitution passed by the National Assembly was “from head to tail, anti-democratic and a violation of the PCC accords.”15 As for the Chinese Communist Party itself, Ambassador Stuart opined that it would not now “join any coalition except on terms dictated by them.”16 To top off the list of problems facing the Nationalists as they approached

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the task of reorganization, the Guomindang itself was internally divided into a number of competing factions, including the reactionary CC Clique (headed by brothers Chen Lifu and Chen Guofu, who were suddenly calling themselves liberals!17), the Whampoa Military Clique, the moderate Political Science Clique, and the financial clique headed by Song Ziwen (T. V. Soong).18 Against such a backdrop, the mere fact that a reorganization of the government could be announced in mid-April gave the U.S. government some cause for hope. Initial results encouraged Stuart. Zhang Qun of the Political Science Clique was named president of the Executive Yuan, and Sun Ke (Sun Fo), the moderately conservative son of the Chinese Republic’s founding father, Sun Yat-sen, was appointed vice president of the Nationalist government. Several other independents sympathetic to the Political Science Clique were added to the State Council.19 Despite these hopeful signs, however, there was evidence of an alliance between the CC Clique and the Political Science Clique to isolate and oust T. V. Soong; Stuart therefore remained concerned as to whether the Generalissimo was “seeking and being guided by the advice of liberal, progressive public servants rather than acceding to the reactionary henchmen personally loyal to him.”20 Evidently, the reorganization had been guided by moderate, if not liberal, advice, for the results did not sit well with these “reactionary henchmen.” Opposed initially to any reorganization, the CC Clique reacted to the April changes—which greatly increased the power of the Political Science Clique—in a rather startling fashion. Determined to prove the inability of the reorganized government to maintain law and order, the CC Clique actually sent agents provocateurs to various universities to foment student unrest, and, in some cases, were apparently quite successful. Only when the incited students’ political demands exceeded the control of the CC agents did the Clique withdraw from this activity.21 Although this particular ploy ultimately failed, the CC Clique found to its satisfaction that it could continue to exert dominant power in the government through its independent GMD Political Committee, its disciplined party machine in key regions, and its close ties to the equally reactionary Whampoa Military Clique, the most powerful of the armed forces cliques. Despite the fact that the CC Clique impeded moves toward genuine governmental reform, that the non-GMD participants in the reorganized government showed “no capacity for initiative,”22 and that urban intellectuals were in rebellion, Ambassador Stuart was nevertheless “cheered,” as he himself put it, by Chiang’s apparent openness to U.S. concerns. On June 18, Stuart wrote, “One can be reasonably certain that with sufficient

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evidence of competent statesmanship and determined moral reforms, the government could recover its hold alike on the intellectuals and the masses.”23 Indeed, Chiang’s frank admission of the need for reforms buoyed Stuart’s spirits throughout the late spring and summer of 1947. In a July 7 radio broadcast, for example, the Generalissimo went so far as to declare, “Unless drastic reforms are introduced, China may not be able to exist in the family of nations. Therefore political, educational, economic and social reforms which should be made, shall not be delayed, . . . but will be initiated right away.”24 In a situation in which U.S. policy imposed upon Stuart the double directives to support Chiang and to encourage liberal-led reform, it is not surprising that the ambassador warmly welcomed such statements. It is deeply ironic, however, that even this clarion call by Chiang for “drastic reforms” of the government was embedded within an even stronger appeal to the Chinese people to join in a “national mobilization” to suppress the Communist Party. Chiang’s speech was timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Japan’s massive invasion of China, triggered by the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, and the Generalissimo seized the opportunity to castigate the CCP as “heir to imperialistic Japan” in carrying out “the pernicious plot to disintegrate China which was left unfinished by their Japanese predecessors.”25 The suppression campaign, launched on the heels of the GMD repression of the student movement of May—repression that included arbitrary beatings, arrests, and abductions, even the killing of students—was premised on Chiang’s conviction that peace and democracy could be achieved only on the basis of first establishing unity within China under his Nationalist government. As Chiang himself stated in the same radio broadcast that had championed openness and reform, “I want to emphasize to my fellow countrymen, and especially to those who are actually striving for the realization of freedom in China and the democratization of our government, that to attain constitutional democracy we must first eliminate the Communist rebels whose principles run counter to constitutional democracy and peaceful reconstruction.”26 Having listed the ways in which the CCP, in his estimation, had failed to come to terms politically, Chiang underlined the need under the new mobilization decree “to contribute all our manpower, material strength and lives, if necessary, to the war of suppressing the rebellion in a common effort to save our country and people.”27 While Chiang promised that enforcement of the mobilization would be in accordance with the law, he also issued a stern warning of punishment for anyone taking part in the work of the “second front” who might disturb social

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order or jeopardize public safety under Communist direction.28 Such was the context for the Generalissimo’s declaration of government reforms. The campaign further demonstrated Chiang’s commitment to civil war and, as it unfolded, it would typify the fundamentally antidemocratic features of his regime. Seeking encouraging signs for American policy, however, Stuart accentuated the references to reform in Chiang’s pronouncement. He also drew optimistic conclusions from a student opinion survey conducted at Tsinghua and Yenching universities in Beiping in early September. Results of the poll showed that 90–95 percent of the students opposed the CCP, and 90 percent opposed the GMD. Disregarding the potential impact that the GMD’s suppression campaign against the CCP may have had in discouraging pro-Communist responses, Stuart observed, “The obvious conclusion would seem to be that the people—even the more radical and immature—are instinctively against Communism and could easily be won to support a truly reformed National Government.”29 The ambassador was further pleased to note at this time the emergence of a moderate GMD figure “gaining in public confidence,” the director of Nationalist Headquarters in Beiping, Li Zongren.30 In the next several months, Li would become a central figure in U.S. attempts to bring liberals to power. It is difficult to assess, however, whether Chiang’s public pronouncements in favor of reform resulted from his desire to meet the American government’s preconditions for renewed aid (the U.S. had tied a China Aid Act to demonstrated reform of the GMD), or from concerns generated by his deteriorating military position in the civil war. The late spring of 1947, after all, marked the launching of what the government called “open rebellion” by the Communists, the point at which the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began the historic shift in military operations from the strategic defensive to the counteroffensive.31 Both developments placed new pressures on Chiang.

T HE C HINESE C OMMUNIST PARTY ’ S R ESPONSE TO THE G UOMINDANG R EFORM Whatever Chiang’s reasons were for initiating the governmental changes, at the end of May, Mao and the CCP denounced the Generalissimo’s various reform attempts and calls for peace as fraudulent: The Chinese people know from their own experience what Chiang Kaishek’s “National Assembly,” “constitution” and “multi-party government”

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really are. Previously many Chinese people, mainly those in the middle strata, had illusions of a greater or lesser extent about the maneuvers of Chiang Kai-shek. It is the same with his “peace negotiations.” Now that Chiang Kai-shek has torn several solemn truce agreements to shreds and used bayonets against the student masses demanding peace and opposing civil war, nobody will any longer believe in his so-called peace negotiations except those bent on deceiving people or those absolutely inexperienced politically.32

Mao may well have been correct in his assertion that for many of the middle forces, the “illusions” they had once harbored about Chiang’s political maneuvers had indeed been shattered. The militant student demonstration at the National Assembly Hall in Nanjing during the anti-hunger, anti–civil war protests demonstrated that a significant section of intellectuals pinned no hope on Chiang’s “reorganized” government. Moreover, the violent fights that had broken out at several colleges over whether or not to go on strike, as well as the various back-to-school initiatives seen on campuses in mid-May, appear not to have been caused by honest disagreement among the students, but rather by GMD agents and the GMD youth wing, the Three People’s Principles Youth Organization, and, in any case, they were quickly settled in favor of continued protest.33 In spite of the anti-GMD, anti-American consciousness and solidarity displayed by the students—and by the faculty members and workers who joined the demonstrations as well—there nevertheless remained, as the spring protests of 1947 subsided, middle forces who still wavered between the Nationalist government and the Communist opposition. It seems that even as Mao in this passage was declaring the unity of the middle forces with the CCP-led program for a “peaceful, democratic and independent new China,” he was at the same time calling for such unity. The increasing attention Mao paid to these middle forces in his writings over the next two years reveals that although he may well have been confident that they would eventually be won over, their allegiance to the CCP’s NewDemocratic revolution required the party to carefully implement a correct policy toward them. The support of the middle forces was neither preordained nor yet an accomplished fact. In addition to highlighting the Communists’ increasing concern for the middle forces, Mao’s statement revealed a second significant development: the CCP was closing the door on any further peace negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek. Whereas earlier, Mao had warned the party not to “rely on negotiations,” now he asserted that negotiations were nothing but political deceit. Mao was convinced that conditions were ripe for

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carrying through the revolution, and he was not about to compromise with Chiang. One might perhaps read into Mao’s statement that if Chiang and his “reactionary henchmen” had been ousted at that time, the Communists, who would then have been in a strong position to assert peace terms favorable to their own interests, would have entered talks with whatever forces might have emerged to lead the Nationalists in Chiang’s stead. But as long as the Generalissimo was head of the GMD, no negotiations would take place. A third issue raised by Mao’s commentary on Chiang’s reform and peace initiatives is closely related to the second. Even as Mao declared Chiang’s “peace negotiations” to be a fraud, he implicitly recognized the students’ demands for peace and an end to civil war to be just. But how was peace to be achieved if not through negotiations? Mao’s answer was to lay the onus of blame for the civil war on the shoulders of Chiang Kaishek: as long as he led the National government, there would be civil war—and there would be treason and dictatorship, too.34 Mao shrewdly focused on the illiberal behaviors of the GMD and tapped into the widespread antipathy toward Chiang among these middle forces to advance his party’s own program of continuing the revolution through to the end. Mao argued, in deference to liberal demands, that peace could come quickly, but now only through the rapidly advancing struggle on the two battlefronts, not through peace talks.35 Among the democratic middle forces, Mao had allies on this issue. One such figure was the famous educator and leader of the Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy, Ma Xulun. Ma had strong credentials as an opponent of civil war. In June of 1946, he had been selected as one of the peace delegates sent off from Shanghai by tens of thousands of wellwishers to deliver a peace petition to Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing. He was also one of the most seriously injured when GMD agents boarded the train at the Xiaguan Station and beat the delegates for having the temerity to demand peace. Months later, Ma publicly laid the blame on the Nationalist Party for launching the civil war; moreover, he supported the Communists in their war of self-defense. The Guomindang, Ma charged, had started the conflict in an effort to exterminate the CCP and to preserve the life of Chiang’s bureaucratic rule. The Communists, by contrast, were fighting only “to protect the people they had liberated and the local governments they had organized.”36 He concluded that under the circumstances, the Communists were right to fight, and that all it would take to end the conflict would be for the United States to end its support for Chiang. 37 And Ma was not alone among the liberals. Shen Junru, Luo Longji, and Zhang Bojun, among other leaders of the Democratic

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League, also issued public statements blaming the Nationalists for tearing up the PCC agreement and breaking the cease-fire by launching all-out civil war.38 Thus, although the PLA’s shift from defensive to offensive warfare may have appeared as a Communist rebuff of those middle forces who consistently called for an immediate cessation of hostilities and negotiations, the CCP strove diligently not to let the military developments alienate the liberals. The party reassuringly presented its intensified attacks on the government as the only genuine means of producing the shared goal of peace. Chiang Kai-shek, of course, continued to offer a similar argument, long rejected by the liberals, that only the military victory of the Nationalist armies would assure lasting peace. What made Mao’s statement somewhat more palatable to the middle forces was the widely held view that Chiang indeed did assume primary responsibility for the failure to implement the PCC accords and for the onset of civil war. Furthermore, the liberals’ continued demand for negotiated peace now appeared far less viable, even to many democrats themselves. Eschewing for the moment the option of raising their own military force,39 the intermediate groups most active at this time—such as the Democratic League—were increasingly pressed by the escalating domestic conflict to choose between two sides, both of whom now seemed committed to peace through military victory. If the Communists’ change in military strategy, therefore, repelled some liberals who wanted peace, the GMD’s national mobilization decree did little to provide an attractive alternative. There remained for the CCP favorable conditions to draw the middle forces to its banner. Military victories did not in any way diminish the party’s commitment to accomplish that end. Communist directives issued during the fall of 1947 demonstrated this commitment to win over the centrist elements. In September, for example, Mao pointed out to his fellow CCP members that new difficulties would be encountered as the fighting moved into Nationalist territories. In addition to winning battles, the Communists would have to “carry out resolutely the policy of winning the masses,” and they would have to “enable the broad masses to benefit so that they [would] side with the army.”40 The prospect of seizing cities had now become very real,41 and the need to forge a broad alliance of urban forces under the banner of New Democracy was so compelling that the first policy enumerated in the Manifesto of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, issued October 10, 1947, read as follows: “Unite workers, peasants, soldiers, intellectuals, and businessmen, all oppressed classes, all people’s organizations, democratic parties, minority nationalities, overseas Chinese and other patriots; form a national united front; overthrow the dictatorial Chiang Kai-shek

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government; and establish a democratic coalition government.”42 Within weeks after the publication of this manifesto, however, events unfolded in Chiang’s urban strongholds that would sharply alter the situation for the democratic middle forces within Chinese politics. These events culminated in the Nationalist government’s suppression of the Democratic League.

A N O RGANIZED M IDDLE F ORCE : T HE D EMOCRATIC L EAGUE The “third road” organization that was identified by both the United States and the Communists as most representative of the middle forces was the Democratic League.43 In the words of Ambassador Stuart, “As the crisis deepens and the Communist and right-wing Guomindang attitudes harden, additional segments of support from groups nearer the center [students and teachers who had previously remained aloof or had wavered] will be attracted to the Democratic League.”44 It will be remembered that the Democratic League had actively participated in the Political Consultative Conference of January 1946. League delegates to the PCC in fact outnumbered both the GMD and CCP delegations.45 The Democratic League put great stock in the resolutions emerging from that conference as the basis for a democratic government in China. League spokesman Luo Longji described them as the “Magna Carta of Chinese liberty,” and though they might be amended, they were never, in his estimation, to be abandoned.46 It was because the Democratic League viewed the National Assembly and constitution of late 1946 as violations of the PCC agreements that it refused to endorse these U.S.-backed measures. As Ambassador Stuart reported to Secretary of State Marshall after talks with Luo soon after Marshall’s departure from China, “The Democratic League urges [the] establishment of an all-Party coalition government, but this cannot be interpreted as an invitation to some parties or groups to come into the Government with exclusion of other parties and groups.”47 Three months later, Luo further clarified his organization’s position. As reported by Second Embassy Secretary John Melby, Luo asserted, “The Democratic League stands for a liberal, middle-of-the-road policy and it is, therefore, opposed to both the Guomindang and the Communists, though political exigencies at the moment require it to follow a course of action largely in support of the Communist position.”48 The Communists, Luo continued, were “legally correct” in demanding the abrogation of the constitution, and the League, as a “liberal group pledged to a policy of developing a Chinese equivalent of Anglo-Saxon constitutionalism,” had to take the Communist side on this question. Likewise, the reorganization

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of the government underway at that moment was only “window dressing” for foreign consumption (presumably for the United States) since “the third parties which will join [in other words, the Youth Party and the Democratic Socialist Party] are little more than GMD stooges and by entry into the government associate themselves with the illegal actions of the Guomindang.”49 Luo did, of course, hope to see liberals assert their power, and he wanted the United States to support the liberals; but he was not very optimistic that his hopes could soon be realized. He harbored doubts as to whether the Nationalists and Communists could ever work together in a coalition government, unless perhaps in the face of a serious threat from abroad, which did not then exist. If the Democratic League thus had to choose sides in China’s civil conflict, as between a “fascist Kuomintang (Guomindang)” supported by the United States and the Chinese Communist Party supported by the Soviet Union, the Democratic League [would] support the Communists because they [were] fighting the greatest menace of all, namely, fascism. Furthermore, even though Communism in China would allow no more scope for the activities of the liberals than [did] the Kuomintang, still Communism [meant] greater good for the mass of the people and therefore should be supported. . . . [S]hould the Communists come to power and prove to be dominated by the Soviet Union, the League would oppose this Soviet influence even as it now oppose[d] American influence on behalf of the Kuomintang.50

While this position of the Democratic League was no doubt consistent with its own principles, it reflected as well a consonance with, if not the direct influence of, the CCP’s antifascist propaganda and opposition to U.S. support of the Nationalists. The American position on the Democratic League was ambiguous. On the one hand, having endorsed the National Assembly and the constitution and having been committed to Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership from the outset, the United States certainly maintained differences with the League on several cardinal issues regarding China’s domestic politics. Moreover, the League’s neutrality in the international standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union, accompanied by its opposition to American influence in Chinese politics, did not sit well with embassy personnel. But on the other hand, American policy was to seek out the liberals and promote them as leaders in the Chinese government. People like Luo Longji, who himself was American-educated with degrees from the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University, were important as potential

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American allies within a reformed national government. Stuart also saw the role the League was playing as a magnet, drawing other, less organized middle forces to its political line. Stuart’s concern was not only tactical— that the League might attract groups in the center that the United States itself wanted to win over—but the ambassador also seemed to recognize that the League actually represented the popular will of the middle forces. This recognition was nowhere more apparent than in Stuart’s surprising May 30, 1947, report to Marshall on the anti-hunger, anti–civil war student movement, marked by demonstrations seething with antiAmerican sentiment. The protests, led in large measure by the League and the CCP, were approaching a climax with a planned June 2 national strike. In spite of the anti-Americanism, Stuart wrote, “This demand [for peace] is in essence the raw stuff out of which democracy can be given form.” He asserted that the students, “the most highly sensitized element of the population and with fewer inhibitions,” had in their protests provided a “fairly reliable register of public opinion.” The ambassador asked, “Will the Government leaders regard the will of the people, now at last articulate, as a mandate to be carried out in the spirit of the new republican principles? Or will they continue in the old tradition to attempt to suppress even orderly agitations . . . ? All signs point to the latter.”51 The frustrations in implementing Marshall’s policy in China were thus so severe that even as Stuart expressed a degree of optimism over the reorganization of the government in April, a mere one month later, the ongoing recalcitrance of the Chiang regime led Stuart to find hope for his liberal ideal even in antiGMD, anti-American student rebellion. For all its opposition to U.S. involvement in China, the Democratic League had by no means been written off by Stuart as a force inimical to American designs for China. As far as Chiang Kai-shek was concerned, however, writing off the Democratic League was precisely the prescription to relieve his government of a major source of oppositional pressure. As early as February 6, the secretary-general of the Nationalist government’s Executive Yuan was reported to have said that the Democratic League was merely “opportunistic and waiting for the breaks,” that “League members were little different from Communists,” and that “the whole crowd of third party people were doctrinaire and incapable of the responsibilities of power.”52 This GMD attitude, coupled with the Nationalists’ stepped-up, violent repression of dissident forces throughout the spring and summer of 1947, gave rise to justifiable fears among League members that their organization might soon be suppressed. These fears began to be realized in August when 437 students from eight Shanghai universities, accused of organizing the May protests,

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were expelled from college, having been labeled as “Communists or Democratic League members.”53 Additionally, 37 Nanjing University students, described similarly as “Communists or Democratic League party members,” were expelled at the same time.54 The government’s July “Rebel Suppression Decree” now applied not only to Communists, but to League members as well. Government-sponsored press attacks on the Democratic League grew more vehement at the beginning of October, labeling League members as “stooges of the Communist Party” who had “joined the insurrection” and “opposed the government.”55 A week later, GMD agents in Xi’an gunned down a member of the League’s Central Committee, the director of the organization’s Northwest Bureau, Du Bincheng. The campaign climaxed on October 27 when the government officially outlawed the Democratic League. Guomindang official Zhang Qun issued the government’s ultimatum: either “voluntarily” disband and cease all political activities, or face the arrest of over seven hundred League leaders throughout the country. This ultimatum, accompanied by Zhang’s additional threat on the lives of Luo Longji and other top leaders, forced the League’s Executive Committee to announce on November 6 that the Democratic League was now officially dissolved.56 American consular officials did not see eye to eye with the Nationalists on the suppression of the Democratic League. Just two weeks before the League was banned, Ambassador Stuart and First Secretary of the Embassy Raymond Ludden met with League leaders Zhang Bojun, Shen Junru, and Luo Longji. At this meeting, the League representatives first renewed their claim that they were by no means CCP stooges, and that only on the basis of spurious GMD secret police reports had such charges been raised. But they did admit that younger League members were growing increasingly radical and that stepped-up repression would only further drive these members into the arms of the Communists. They feared such a radical turn might lead to their own ouster, as they were seen as the “old” leadership. They argued that it was in the United States’ interest to protect the League’s “public-spirited progressive liberals” and their rights to open and legal activity.57 The consular officials apparently agreed, for they proceeded to intercede with the Nationalists on behalf of the League. This concern, expressed not only by U.S. officials but by the international community as well, had led the GMD several weeks earlier to adopt a policy of careful dealings with the League’s most influential leaders,58 perhaps saving them from incarceration or death. Stuart and Ludden felt that the government attacks on the League in October were “largely unjustified” and were aimed at stamping out the “last remaining political opposition.”59 The

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embassy staff was only too aware that GMD repression was impeding American efforts to defeat the Communists in the battle for the middle forces. These concerns were explicitly recorded by Ludden as follows: “The Ambassador expressed the view that the Government was on poor tactical ground in acting in a manner which might drive the League underground and thus swell the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party with many intelligent and politically conscious professors and students.”60 Stuart expressed a similar opinion on the day the League was outlawed when he dispatched the following message to Marshall: “Unrestrained [Nationalist actions against the Democratic League] will tend further to alienate liberal and intellectual opinion against the Government and in such a situation we cannot expect to escape unscathed.”61 Stuart was correct. Even if the United States had not wanted to see the DL suppressed, its continuous support for Chiang’s government before, during, and after the League’s dissolution raised in the minds of many Chinese the question of whether Chiang could have carried out this attack on the liberals without the consent of Washington.

R EORGANIZATION AND THE N EW P OLITICAL S TANCE OF THE D EMOCRATIC L EAGUE The Democratic League, while hit hard by the government’s October 27 proclamation declaring the organization an “outlaw group” (feifa tuanti), strove nevertheless to maintain its viability in Chinese politics. In the days immediately after the proclamation was issued, the DL’s South China Branch issued a strong rebuke to the Nationalist authorities, denouncing them as “fascists.” The statement condemned the Guomindang for its duplicity in issuing calls to “put the constitution into practice,” while simultaneously suppressing with violence the movement for peace and democracy.62 What lay behind both actions, the statement charged, was the Nationalists’ drive to expand and extend the civil war. The talk of constitutionalism was intended for the ears of the United States so that aid would continue to flow.63 Violent repression was intended to send a message to the people in Chiang’s White Territories that any opposition ran the risk of grave personal consequences. While the outrage of League members seethed, the central leadership nevertheless issued the public announcement on November 6 that the organization was voluntarily disbanding and ceasing its political activities.64 The following day, League Chairman Zhang Lan, the bearded, balding Sichuanese educator and veteran of the 1911 Revolution, issued a

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personal statement expressing his hope that “the entire body of League members, standing loyal to the nation, will continue to bend every effort, within the boundaries of strict adherence to the rules, to strive toward reaching our goal of peace, democracy and unity.”65 For many League members, however, both the announcement of the organization’s dissolution and the admonition in Zhang’s personal statement to abide by the rules set by the Nationalist government did not sit well. On November 9, the League’s South China Branch issued a much stronger reaction to the dissolution. After recounting the repressive tactics of the Nationalist government toward the League’s central leadership, the statement defiantly declared, “The League’s South China Branch will maintain the sterling quality of an organization committed to struggle for democracy and peace; it will continue to strive and will by no means cease its political activities because of the dictatorial government’s illegal repression.”66 Indeed, while some of the League’s top leaders had appeared to accept the decision to dissolve, others pursued both open and undercover efforts to resist the Guomindang action. Anticipating the crackdown, the League’s General Branch (its central leadership body) had hidden the membership lists, ordered the original local League branches to shut down, and issued instructions to all members in positions of responsibility who were known to the GMD to flee. The plan was for League work to continue, even if the General Branch were dissolved, by re-establishing new, underground local organs in midNovember that, in light of the repressive conditions, would encourage more individual action by the membership. Such local preparations proved successful: in Shanghai alone, in the face of the government’s repression, 542 members convened in secret to re-establish the city’s branch.67 Even as similar developments were taking place in a number of other cities in Chiang’s White Territories, activist Democratic League leaders Shen Junru, Zhang Bojun, and Zhou Xinmin were moving the organization’s headquarters to Hong Kong to undertake preparations for the reconstitution of the League as a whole, including its General Branch.68 The Nationalist government’s move to outlaw the Democratic League thus resulted in two immediate outcomes. On the one hand, though hampered by the repressive constraints it faced as an organization dedicated to legal activism, the League demonstrated its resolve to remain a viable force in Chinese politics. On the other hand, the League would no longer exist for the United States as a viable force of liberals who might lead the Nationalist government on the road to reform. While America would now have to search elsewhere for liberal reformers, the Chinese Communist Party would extend its hand to the League, calling upon its members to

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set aside “illusions” about a “third road” for China and join with the CCP in seeing the great “democratic revolution” through to victory.

CCP R ESPONDS TO THE L EAGUE ’ S D ISSOLUTION — A S IGNIFICANT H ISTORICAL J UNCTURE On the day the League announced that it was disbanding, the Communist Party issued a pointed statement on the situation, marking the suppression of the League not only as a low point in the already exposed and sullied U.S.-backed rule of Chiang Kai-shek, but also as a key historical juncture in China’s domestic political situation. Opening the commentary with its basic response to the dissolution, the CCP acknowledged that the League included many who were “democratic soldiers” in the battle against “Chiang Kai-shek’s dictatorship and U.S. imperialism,” specifically mentioning such martyrs as Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo. But other League members, the statement maintained, continued to “harbor illusions” about the GMD and—especially—about America. The Democratic League was thus an organization representing a wide variety of perspectives; moreover, the League had also foresworn violence, “battling only with voice and pen.” Yet Chiang had nevertheless declared it an outlaw party. Only a desperate government, the commentary claimed, would resort to such an act of suppression.69 The statement went on to assail the United States, asserting that “without the approval and collusion of American imperialists, Chiang would never have outlawed the League.”70 While the record indicates that this charge wrongly overstated the level of U.S. complicity—in fact, Stuart had personally tried to talk Chiang out of his decision—the commentary’s subsequent charge was surely less wide of the mark. It posed the rhetorical and metaphorical question as to why, with its millions of dollars of “relief” flowing to Chiang’s government, Dr. America could not provide the Generalissimo with a sedative.71 The fact of the matter was that even though the United States did not approve of the League’s dissolution, it failed to utilize the sizable leverage at its disposal to alter Chiang’s decision. Having excoriated both the Nationalists and the United States in the suppression of the Democratic League, the statement went on to underscore the crucial role that the League had played in organizing urban resistance to both the GMD and American imperialism. But the statement then turned toward its main point: the suppression of the Democratic League marked the moment at which the third road had met a dead end. The CCP challenged League members and the middle

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forces more broadly to learn the “profound lesson” the government was teaching through its actions: that “if they want[ed] freedom and if they want[ed] genuine peace, they [would] have to utilize armed force to beat down Chiang Kai-shek . . . and not rely on any peaceful, legal, or reformist methods.”72 The statement concluded by calling on the League to cast away illusions, to recognize that the middle road no longer existed, and to “take a stand on the side of the genuine people’s democratic revolution.”73

M AO R ETHINKS THE C ONCEPT

OF

C OALITION G OVERNMENT

This CCP analysis soon translated into a major rethinking of Communist policy toward the “middle forces.” In stressing the futility of searching for a peaceful road and in emphasizing the existence of only two paths—as the Communists defined them, the path of reaction offered by the Nationalists and the path of democratic revolution offered by New Democracy—the Communist Party began to re-evaluate the relevancy of one of the cornerstones of its postwar programme, the demand for a coalition government. Certainly one of the most significant bases of unity that the CCP had established with the democratic parties and groups was the common demand for a coalition government. Representation of all different parties in such a coalition had been identified by the Communist Party and the democratic parties alike as the key to resolving three of China’s most pressing political problems: Chiang Kai-shek’s system of one-party rule, the absence of democratic representation and democratic liberties, and the threat of civil war. In 1944 the Communists had first advanced the demand for coalition government; in 1945 they had fleshed out and propagated the concept in Mao’s article, “On Coalition Government”; and in 1946 they had worked for the establishment of a coalition government through the resolutions agreed upon at the Political Consultative Conference. But in late 1947, Mao apparently saw a change in the situation. The Nationalists had abrogated the PCC accords; they had launched a nationwide civil war, whose tide had recently turned in favor of the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army; and now they had deprived the democratic middle forces of their right to peaceful and legal opposition. If this new situation had indeed left China with only two contending political forces, two roads, then what need was there for a coalition government? Experience in both the October Revolution in 1917 Russia and in the current, successful

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Yugoslavian Revolution seemed to suggest to CCP Chairman Mao Zedong that when the polarization of the revolutionary situation reached the point where a third road was untenable, the demand for coalition government lost its relevancy. That Mao was indeed considering this conclusion has been revealed in correspondence he carried out with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in the period after the dissolution of the Democratic League. Evidence indicates that on November 30, 1947, just three weeks after the League publicly disbanded, Mao sent a message to Stalin. Stalin’s reply quotes Mao as having offered the following analysis in that original message: “In the period of the final victory of the Chinese revolution, following the case of the USSR and Yugoslavia, all political parties, except the CCP, will have to withdraw from the political scene, as this [withdrawal] will consolidate the Chinese revolution substantially.”74 Communication lines were difficult at the time as the CCP had abandoned its capital at Yan’an to Chiang’s attacking forces and had begun leading the GMD troops on a fruitless pursuit mission in Northern Shaanxi Province. Stalin therefore did not respond until April 20, 1948. But the Soviet Party leader’s message to Mao was significant and bears quoting at length: We do not agree with this. We think that the various opposition parties in China, representing the middle strata of the Chinese population and standing against the Guomindang clique, will be viable for a long time ahead, and the Chinese Communist party will [have to] attract them for cooperation [aimed] against the Chinese reaction and imperialist powers, while retaining its hegemony, that is the leading position. Probably some representatives of these parties will have to be incorporated in the Chinese people’s democratic government, and the government as such [will have] to be proclaimed as coalition, so as to expand the basis of the government among the population as well as to isolate the imperialists and their Guomindang agents. It should be kept in mind that after the victory of the people’s liberation armies of China— at least, in a postvictory period for which the duration is difficult to define now—the Chinese government, in terms of its policy, will be a national revolutionary-democratic government, rather than a Communist one.75

While Mao considered abandoning the concept of coalition government, Stalin strongly advocated continuing support for the idea. From the time in late November when Mao sent the message until he received this reply, coalition government did indeed lose the prominence in Mao’s writings that it had previously held. It had been as recently as October 10, just seven weeks before Mao dispatched his note to Stalin, that Mao had drafted the “Manifesto of the People’s Liberation Army.” In

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that piece, Mao had stated at the outset, “Today our aim is to carry out the urgent demand of the people of the whole country, that is, to overthrow the arch-criminal of the civil war, Chiang Kai-shek, and form a democratic coalition government in order to attain the general goal of liberating the people and the nation.”76 The manifesto went on to list eight policies presumed to reflect the will of the Chinese people. As cited earlier, the very first policy called for broad unity to be built among China’s various social classes and political parties, and in particular it advocated that the people “form a national united front; overthrow the dictatorial Chiang Kai-shek government; and establish a democratic coalition government.”77 With rhetorical flourish, Mao opened both of the two penultimate paragraphs of the manifesto with the same phrase: “In order to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek and form a democratic coalition government at an early date.”78 It is obvious how central the notion of coalition government was to Mao’s thinking as late as October 1947. By contrast, Mao’s important December 25, 1947, report to the CCP Central Committee, “The Present Situation and our Tasks,” made only a single reference to coalition government, and this in a paragraph in which he quoted the first policy from the manifesto. Mao did not elaborate further on the concept in the paragraph or in the rest of this lengthy report. However, it may be worth noting that in citing this element of the manifesto, Mao did underscore the importance of coalition government with the pointed comment that the first policy encapsulated no less than “the fundamental programme of the People’s Liberation Army and the Communist Party of China.”79 Nevertheless, the omission of any further mention of coalition government was unusual in Mao’s major political pronouncements. Further evidence that coalition government had receded from Mao’s thinking during the winter of 1947–48 derives from his January 18 directive to the CCP Central Committee, entitled “Important Problems of the Party’s Present Policy.” In this article, Mao addressed, among other problems, the “Problem of State Power.” This section discussed not only the class nature of the emerging new-democratic state, the People’s Republic of China, but also elections and the formation of the new government at its various levels, from local to central. Significantly, there was no mention whatsoever of coalition government in this section.80 Despite Mao’s complete omission of coalition government from his January directive, however, it appears that as spring 1948 approached, the chairman had not totally rejected the concept. On April 1, for example, still nearly three weeks before Stalin’s reply in favor of coalition government was even drafted, Mao delivered an important speech at a conference

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of cadres in the North China liberated areas. In this speech, the CCP chairman admonished the gathering of local leading activists with the following words: In this situation, all comrades must firmly grasp the general line of the Party, that is, the line of the new-democratic revolution. . . . This means that the united front of those joining the revolution is very broad, embracing the workers, peasants, independent craftsmen, professionals, intellectuals, the national bourgeoisie, and the section of the enlightened gentry which has broken away from the landlord class. All these are what we refer to as the broad masses of the people. The state and the government to be founded by the broad masses of the people will be the People’s Republic of China and the democratic coalition government of the alliance of all democratic classes under the leadership of the proletariat.81

Mao here continued to uphold his earlier conviction that coalition government was at the core of the new-democratic revolution. In short, the overall evidence suggests that in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Democratic League, Mao gave serious consideration to an analysis that events had rendered the demand for coalition government unnecessary—and unnecessarily burdensome for the Communist Party. But the evidence also suggests that Mao never entirely abandoned this feature of the CCP’s programme that had been so central to its work with the democratic middle forces since 1944. It is perhaps more accurate to conclude that, rather than correcting Mao’s errant conviction that there was no longer any purpose to be served by coalition government, Stalin’s reproach instead served to end the ambivalence Mao demonstrated on the question.

M AO, THE N EW-D EMOCRATIC U NITED F RONT, AND THE M IDDLE F ORCES It is ironic that even as Mao’s writings during the winter of 1947–48 may have disclosed his ambivalence on the question of coalition government, they disclosed no ambivalence whatsoever regarding his ongoing commitment to building a broad, multiclass united front to win victory in the revolution. In fact, during these months, Mao seemed to be paying increasing attention to the importance of the middle forces, including not only professionals and intellectuals, but patriotic capitalists (the national bourgeoisie), too. On this point, Stalin was mistaken when he read into Mao’s note that, in questioning the need for a coalition government, Mao was

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also advocating the idea that China could now launch a socialist revolution. On the contrary, Mao’s writings throughout this period demonstrated his continued embrace of New Democracy’s antifeudal, antiimperialist revolution as the immediate task. Nothing written by the CCP during the winter of 1947–48 would be so revealing of the centrality of the middle forces to the Communist cause as the already mentioned political report that Mao delivered on Christmas Day to the Central Committee. While this piece would only make one mention of coalition government, it would nevertheless offer one of Mao’s most systematic theoretical treatments of the new stage of the Chinese civil war, the revolutionary offensive, and of the new political tasks confronting the Chinese Communist Party, including work with the middle forces. “The Present Situation and Our Tasks” recorded Mao’s important analysis of the historic “turning point” in the civil war. In this report, the chairman placed the relation of the middle forces to the revolution in a socioeconomic context, based on his assessment that the immediate goal was the establishment of “new democracy:” “The new democratic revolution aims at wiping out only feudalism and monopoly capitalism, only the landlord class and the bureaucrat-capitalist class (the big bourgeoisie), and not at wiping out capitalism in general, the upper petty bourgeoisie or the middle bourgeoisie.” In light of China’s economic backwardness, Mao continued, “even after the country-wide victory . . . [t]his capitalist sector will still be an indispensable part of the whole national economy.”82 Here Mao gave particular emphasis to those social strata whose economic positions helped shape their political proclivities as intermediate forces. These “upper petty bourgeois” (defined by Mao as “small industrialists and merchants employing workers or assistants”) and “middle bourgeois” elements were being driven by hunger and repression to rebel against the Nationalists and the United States, and they were increasingly sympathetic to the CCP. “Never before has their awakening reached such a level,” Mao declared. He continued, “Our new-democratic revolutionary united front is now broader and more consolidated than ever.”83 But the party, Mao warned, had to continue to provide “firm leadership” to avoid a repeat of the 1927 disaster when it “voluntarily gave up leadership of the peasant masses, urban petty bourgeoisie and middle bourgeoisie, and in particular gave up leadership of the armed forces, thus causing the defeat of the revolution.” The correct political line was not capitulation, but rather “developing the progressive forces, winning over the middle forces and isolating the diehards.”84 In this last regard, Mao

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noted that there were indeed “a small number of people from among the upper petty bourgeoisie and the middle bourgeoisie, the right wing of these classes, who have reactionary political tendencies, spread illusions about U.S. imperialism and the reactionary Chiang Kai-shek clique and oppose the people’s democratic revolution.” It was necessary, Mao stated, “to unmask them before the people . . . attack their influence, and liberate the masses from it.”85 But this political attack, Mao stressed, was not to be confused with “economic annihilation.” “Ultraleft” policies toward these middle bourgeois forces from 1931–34 (including “unduly advanced labor conditions, an excessive income tax, encroachments on the interests of industrialists and merchants . . . and adoption of the goal of ‘workers’ welfare’”), had been “short-sighted and one-sided.” What the new-democratic stage of revolution called for instead was the development of production, economic prosperity, consideration of both public and private interests, and the benefit of “both labor and capital.”86 This last formulation, the benefit of both labor and capital, seems to be a construct difficult to reconcile with original Marxist theory, the basic tenet of which was precisely the antagonism of labor and capital. It is true that Marx had assigned a progressive historical role to capitalism, in part because of its expansion of the productive forces. But the most progressive historical contribution of capitalism in Marx’s view was the fact that it created its own gravedigger, the proletariat, whose historical mission it was to free itself and all humankind from the shackles of class society. To Marx, capital and labor shared no common interests, but rather stood in fundamental opposition to each other. Mao’s defense of the concept of “benefiting both labor and capital” was to point to the particular historical situation of new democracy. China was still a semifeudal society, and all democratic revolutions—even the “old” (bourgeois) democratic revolutions—had united labor and capital against the constraints of the feudal order. But now in China, there was another factor: what separated “new” democracy from “old” democracy, Mao maintained, was that new democracy was led by the working class and its party, not by the bourgeoisie. Like “old” democracy, “new” democracy sought to root out feudalism, but it also aimed to free the country from imperialist impingements and domination. The economic development unleashed by the old bourgeois revolutions—the French Revolution was the archetype—had to be replicated under a new-democratic regime as well, but without the immiseration of the working class that had marked the advance of capitalism in the industrialized countries.

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The Chinese Communist Party thus faced the dual task of advancing workers’ interests while freeing the bourgeoisie (i.e., all but the “big bourgeoisie,” whose enterprises were to be confiscated by the state) to develop production. It was Mao’s position in 1947 that “for a long time”—though for a limited time, to be sure—capital and labor could both be served within the context of state control of huge enterprises in the industrial sector and an increase in the number, scale, and significance of cooperatives in the rural economy.87 This concept of benefiting both labor and capital was a concession to the backwardness of the Chinese economy at the time, and it was seen by Mao as a temporary stage, preceding—and creating the conditions for—the labor-versus-capital showdown that marks socialist revolution. As Mao would quite frankly state two months later, “Our revolution at the present stage is a new democratic, a people’s democratic revolution in character and is different from a socialist revolution.”88 Mao concluded his theoretical treatment of new democracy in this report by placing the revolution in its international context. He reiterated the basic analysis offered by Lu Dingyi one year earlier, but with a few important changes reflecting developments in the Cold War and his own radical perspective. He restated Lu’s contentions that democratic forces in both the oppressed countries and the capitalist countries themselves— including within the United States—were “getting stronger every day” in opposition to American imperialism. But rather than just receiving the “sympathy and moral support” of the Soviet Union, as Lu had put it, these democratic forces were now, in Mao’s words, united in a great “anti-imperialist camp headed by the Soviet Union,”89 phraseology that closely paralleled that of Andrei Zhdanov in his keynote speech to the Cominform founding convention three months earlier.90 Mao repeated Lu’s analysis that the United States was still trying to “enslav[e] the world,” but the talk in Washington about World War III was for Mao no longer simply a smokescreen to cover U.S. aggression elsewhere, but rather a real U.S. hope and plan to defeat the world’s democratic forces, though perhaps only realizable in the distant future.91 Finally, in contrast to Lu’s non-revolutionary response to U.S. aggression, Mao minced no words in the following excerpt: If everyone makes strenuous efforts, we, together with the democratic forces of the world, can surely defeat the imperialist plan of enslavement, prevent the outbreak of a third world war, overthrow all reactionary regimes, and win lasting peace. . . . This is the historic epoch in which world capitalism and imperialism are going down to their doom, and world socialism and people’s democracy are marching to victory.92

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Mao’s perception was that, based on the international unity of democratic forces, an era of world revolution had begun. In sum, Mao’s year-end report in 1947 laid great stress on uniting with the middle forces in the course of accomplishing a new-democratic revolution. Politically, these forces were an important part of the destabilization of the Nationalist government from within its own urban strongholds and in the economic development of newly captured cities. They were to play a critical role immediately in the maintenance of production to support the revolution, and in the future in the country-wide expansion of the productive forces in the quest for economic prosperity. Mao maintained that new democracy would be characterized by its political commitment to a united front of various social classes and its economic commitment to benefit both labor and capital. Mao’s adherence to a policy of broad united front, including the great majority of the middle forces, was part of an international revolutionary strategy of uniting a wide array of “democratic forces” to overthrow all reactionary governments—uniting the many to defeat the few. Mao’s emphasis on building a democratic, anti-imperialist front was consonant with the Cominform program of September 1947. The implications for China of Mao’s analysis of the international situation were that democratic, anti-imperialist forces should be organized against all reactionaries. In other words, CCP efforts to win over the middle forces would be based on opposition to both the Chiang Kai-shek government and the United States. Such was the Communists’ plan. But as 1947 drew to a close, it was not yet certain whether or not the Democratic League and China’s other democratic middle forces would indeed side with the Communists in the revolution. On one point, however, all sides in the knotty web of Chinese politics agreed: the antagonism between China’s most active liberals— those in the Democratic League—and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government had widened to the point that no bridge could be built to span the gap. As for Ambassador Stuart and the United States, the policy of supporting reform, but only “under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek” and his Nationalist Party, had resulted in the most influential of China’s democratic actors being denied their independent role on the political stage. Stuart himself conceded this round of the battle for the middle forces to the Communists. He expressed his disappointment in a report on the Chinese political situation that he cabled to Washington on October 29. The League, Stuart concluded, having been driven ever farther to the left and thus arousing suspicion of “Communist proclivities” now offered “little prospect of serving as a nucleus for liberal action.”93

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The loss of the Democratic League did not, however, lead Stuart to abandon Marshall’s policy of building up the liberals. The ambassador still saw in China’s educated youth hope for the future. “The student class is intensely nationalistic and now thoroughly alarmed,” he observed. Continuing, Stuart wrote, “The genius of the Chinese people is naturally democratic rather than Communistic. By making our objectives transparently clear we can help toward a resurgent moral awakening aiming at Government reform and a better livelihood for all, with students past and present as the animating heart of it.”94 Despite Stuart’s dreams that the United States could “win the allegiance of youth[s] and neutralize their suspicions of American imperialism,”95 reality would soon shatter these fond hopes. During the first half of 1948, the continued failure of government reform and the “intense nationalism” of the educated youth would only drive the wedge deeper between the United States and China’s prized middle forces.


4

C

H A P T E R

4

T H E B AT T L E F O R T H E M I D D L E F O R C E S P E A K S : T H E D O M E S T I C F A C T O R S , 1947–48

The chill of the winter of 1947–48 accompanied the chill on democratic

activism in urban China after the disbanding of the Democratic League in early November. Although the League leadership would regroup in Hong Kong and adopt new forms of underground organization and a new political stance to reflect the intensified repression they faced as an “illegal group” under the Nationalist regime, the public influence, if not the organizing effectiveness, of the Democratic League would be diminished. Yet even with the suppression of those who had been the most openly active of the liberal middle forces since the end of World War II, new reform-minded actors who stood between Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communists continued to emerge and take their places in the political arena. Among these newly emerging reformists, the most prominent were alienated members of the Nationalist Party itself. Two developments during the first half of 1948 reflected this shifting terrain defining China’s middle forces. First was the decisive First Congress of the Democratic League’s Third Central Executive Committee, a meeting that formalized the League’s alliance with the Communist Party in China’s “democratic revolution.” Second was the convening of the Nationalist government’s second National Assembly and the related attempts to structure a reformed Guomindang government. America’s China policy would be tested in both these political venues, and the outcome in each case would deal a still more powerful blow to Marshall’s hopes for liberal leadership of a Nationalist government friendly to the United States. We turn first to the activities of the Democratic League,

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the organization upon which the United States had pinned its hopes for liberal leadership in China during 1947.

R EORGANIZATION AND R EORIENTATION OF THE D EMOCRATIC L EAGUE —J ANUARY 1948 After the outlawing of the Democratic League in October 1947, the government placed League Chairman Zhang Lan and League spokesman Luo Longji under continuous surveillance and confined their movements within Shanghai.1 Several other leading members, who secretly took flight to Hong Kong, however, immediately began reorganizing and reorienting the organization. By the beginning of January, they had completed the preparatory work to convene a meeting of a new Central Executive Committee. These preparations had included lively discussions in small gatherings and in the pages of various publications, especially in Hong Kong and South China, focusing on the questions of politics and the organization of the League under the new conditions imposed by its “outlaw” status.2 As early as November 25, 1947, for example, an article entitled “The Democratic League from This Point Forward” appeared in the Hong Kong paper Liberty (Ziyou). The author argued, “While there are indeed centrist parties and groups to represent the middle strata of society as far as politics are concerned, there can be no centrist parties and groups taking a position between democracy and anti-democracy.”3 The author maintained that a middle line could not be followed, that it was imperative for all democratic forces to cooperate hand-in-hand, and that all illusions about the United States and the Chiang regime had to be dispelled.4 Another publication, The Contemporary Overseas Chinese (Xiandai Huaqiao), ran an article by Deng Chuming, Central Executive Committee member of the League and a well-known social scientist. Entitled “On the Scope of New Democracy,” the opinion piece asserted that ever since the end of World War I and the Soviet October Revolution, the Chinese Revolution had “not been a revolution to establish bourgeois rule, but rather a revolution led by the proletariat to establish a new-democratic society ruled by an alliance of the revolutionary classes.” Deng continued, “Bourgeois freedom both in economics and in politics has proven to be both feeble and weak.” He concluded, “Early on, China produced a party that has been conscious, has demonstrated its strength and capability on

T H E D O M E S T I C FAC TO R S , 1 9 4 7 – 4 8

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China’s political stage, and has provided leadership broadly to the peasant class, the petty bourgeoisie, intellectuals and other democratic elements— the party of the working class and its leaders, the Chinese Communist Party.”5 Deng’s unapologetic support for the CCP and its programme of New Democracy apparently embodied the thoughts of many League members as they gathered the following month to set the new course for their organization. Lasting for two weeks beginning January 5, this First Session of the Third Central Executive Committee of the Democratic League hammered out a new political programme. This programme marked a watershed in the history of the organization: the League itself now rejected the notion of a “middle road” in Chinese politics and it officially aligned itself with the CCP programme of New Democracy. League leaders opened the Hong Kong meeting by issuing a strongly worded “Urgent Statement,” declaring that it was not the Democratic League, but rather the Nationalist government that was “illegal” and had become the nation’s public enemy. The statement indicted the Nationalist government on charges that by now had gained wide currency throughout China: the Guomindang had torn up the PCC resolutions, convened a “bogus National Assembly,” passed a “bogus constitution,” used armed force in the murders of Chinese people, and sold out the national interests in becoming a tool of American reactionaries and aggressors. The suppression of the League only offered more proof that the regime was nothing more than a dictatorship.6 The statement proclaimed that the League was now renouncing the decision it had made under pressure to disband and cease all political activities, and it affirmed the League’s rededication to the Chinese people and the people of the world to struggle toward genuine democracy, peace, independence, and national unity. The statement concluded by expressing the conviction that this League has already established a bright history and an unshakable foundation amidst the Chinese people. The Chinese people need the League; the Chinese people support the League; the League cannot be exterminated by the reactionary and dictatorial Nanjing government. Our League’s 100,000 members both inside the country and abroad will henceforth rise up with still greater strength and fight to the end to thoroughly destroy the reactionary Nanjing regime and to thoroughly bring into being a democratic, peaceful, independent and unified new China!7

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Having set this determined and optimistic tone, the delegates set about the tasks of recrafting the League’s policies and structures. An important element in this process was the re-evaluation of recent League history. Shen Junru provided an analysis in his opening-day speech. Though diminutive in stature, Shen—easily recognizable with his long goatee and Chinese gown—nevertheless stood high in the estimation of his fellow League members for his courage, his sharp legal mind, and his commitment to democracy. Shen recalled for the delegates the heady period immediately after the war, when the prospects of democracy were sweeping not only through China but also through Japan and the rest of the world. In China, the hopes had culminated in the agreements of the Political Consultative Conference, where the Democratic League had played a crucial role in promoting cooperation between the Nationalists and the Communists.8 Shen noted that during the two years since the PCC, however, the whole situation had changed. Guomindang obstructionists had refused to open the channels of political power, and the United States, which at the beginning of the Marshall Mission had struck the pose of a just and fair arbitrator and had given lip service to its support for Chinese democracy, now stood exposed for its one-sided and complete allegiance to the Guomindang. Thus assured of U.S. support, Shen continued, the GMD proceeded with its plans to wipe out the CCP; meanwhile, Marshall, Stuart, and Wedemeyer all involved themselves in the civil war. Thus both the Nationalists and the United States were responsible for the conflict.9 This civil war had resulted, however, in the growth of the Democratic League and its role in Chinese politics. Vast numbers of Chinese who wanted peace turned to the League. Forty-six chapters were established under six regional branches—all dedicated to building unity among the various democratic forces and cooperating closely with the CCP to establish peace and democracy. In addition, the United States, England, the USSR and other countries all had consulted with the League about how to mediate the conflict. But the League’s work faced increasing obstacles as the Nationalists, who ever since 1927 had wanted to rule as the sole political party, stepped up their repression, going so far as to assassinate four Democratic League leaders. In memory of these martyrs, Shen urged, the League had to carry on.10 Significantly, Shen finished his speech by reaffirming the argument that had been raised in the November 25 newspaper article: that between democracy and antidemocracy, there could be no middle ground. In contemporary China, he maintained, there was the Guomindang, which was bringing civil war and untold suffering to the people. On the other side


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was the Communist Party, which was carrying out land reform in the liberated areas and improving the people’s livelihoods. “This is the contrast,” Shen observed, “that brings to light the difference between democracy and anti-democracy.”11 The analysis of recent League history that Shen provided in this opening speech established the framework for the decisions agreed upon by the plenary over the next fortnight. On the question of reorganization, the convention decided that its earlier commitment to peaceful, legal, and open means and structures could no longer be sustained. Since there was now no other road forward, save for the “basic overthrow of the Chiang Kai-shek government,” the “legal and open” organization had to be replaced by a “revolutionary, mass-type” organization.12 On the question of policy, the League identified four substantial changes from its earlier positions. First, while still working for peace and democracy, the Democratic League now recognized that genuine peace and democracy could not be achieved through negotiations, but rather only through opposition to the Nanjing government’s ruling group.13 Second, in opposing this ruling group, the League’s new position was that it was not enough to oppose the dictator himself; it was necessary instead to identify and destroy the economic foundations of the political power that he and his group wielded, in particular the big landlord system of exploitation. Land reform thus had to be completed to fulfill the promise of “land to the tiller.”14 Third, it was necessary to censure and oppose the United States. Reflecting the “will of the minority of financial oligarchs and monopoly capitalists,” America was not only using every kind of direct and indirect means to “support the dictatorship and oppose the democratic revolution,” but was also violating Chinese sovereignty in its bid to “make China its anti-Soviet, anti-Communist base in the Far East.”15 Fourth, the League welcomed the cooperation of other democratic parties in fighting against the Nationalist dictatorship. These allies included both the Communist Party, whose struggles for democracy had been “worthy of the approval of each and every patriotic Chinese person,” and the newly formed Guomindang Revolutionary Committee, whose politics were based on “the revolutionary spirit of Sun Yat-sen.”16 The new principles of organization and the new policies were the subject of expanded analysis in the meeting’s “Political Report,” delivered on the final day of the gathering. Particularly significant was the report’s comprehensive assessment of the international situation. The League was now convinced that World War III was a distinct possibility. The report laid responsibility squarely on the shoulders of “American imperialism” for

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creating a bipolar world. The Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the unilateral action by Britain and the United States to create West Germany had together led to the global divide. As to why, the League maintained that the United States was acting in the interests of “wealthy capitalists whose illusory plan was to impose their monopoly over the enslaved peoples of the world.” To realize this plan, American imperialists were compelled to treat as enemies the socialist Soviet Union, the new democracies of Eastern Europe, and the people struggling for independence and democracy around the globe. Its preferred methods included the provision of money, weapons, technologies, and the like to reactionary forces, actively interfering in domestic politics to suppress democratic movements.17 The report cited U.S. support of Alcide De Gasperi in Italy and Paul Ramadier in France as examples of American assistance to “reactionaries” designed to undermine leftist democrats in Europe. In Asia, America was backing the Dutch in their suppression of the Indonesian independence movement and was standing behind the French in their efforts to combat Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. The United States’ support for Chiang Kaishek against the democratic movement in China, therefore, was part of a larger pattern. The analysis concluded, “American imperialism has gathered together all of the public enemies of the people of the world, big and small, the dregs of history, to bring them into the ranks of the anti-people, anti-democratic, anti-Soviet, anti-communist ‘crusade.’”18 The report left no question as to whose side the Democratic League was on. If the international situation and China’s domestic situation were both now polarized, then it was necessary for the League to “actively support the people’s taking up arms to resist the reactionaries’ armed assault against the people.”19 Moreover, the League would seek out friendly forces in the democratic revolution. Based upon common goals and common demands, the Democratic League therefore publicly announced its policy of “close cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party.”20 The Democratic League’s new political programme thus reflected the success of the CCP in winning over a crucial ally, the largest and most influential organization among China’s liberal middle forces. The United States had seen this turn of events coming during the weeks when the Nationalist government was escalating its repression of the League in the fall of 1947. But America chose not to act. Even the prospect—and, ultimately the reality—of such a major setback to Marshall’s policy of building up China’s liberals failed to generate a re-evaluation of America’s support for Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist regime. Instead, Ambassador Stuart simply looked elsewhere, now within the


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Guomindang itself, to find a new set of liberals who might live up to America’s expectations.

N ATIONALIST R EFORM ATTEMPTS As early as July of 1947, rumors had begun to circulate that a major upheaval within the Nationalist Party was imminent. In a detailed report to Ambassador Stuart, Fulton Freeman, U.S. consul at Beiping, outlined the specific plans of recalcitrant elements within the GMD to break off and form a so-called “Third Party” (not to be confused with earlier “third force” groups like the Democratic League). Wanting to rid themselves of the Generalissimo and the Whampoa Military Clique and at the same time wanting to cease hostilities and form a coalition government, a large group of GMD generals (including Feng Yuxiang, Fu Zuoyi, Li Jishen, Li Zongren, Ma Hongguei, Yan Xishan, Bai Chongxi, and others) were alleged to be plotting their defection from the Nationalist ranks. These generals and their forces were all reportedly prepared to unite under Feng’s military leadership and Li Jishen’s political leadership.21 As reported by Freeman, the Third Party planned to invite participation by the Democratic League as an “integral part” of its organization and to open its ranks to all liberals and progressives. The Third Party movement was to Freeman “the first gleam of hope in a perilously dark situation.”22 However, nothing emerged immediately from this conspiracy—no coup d’état, no Third Party, no organized opposition to Chiang Kai-shek within the GMD. But several of the names associated with the Third Party movement were to become familiar in the intraparty conflicts of March and April 1948. During the winter of 1947–48, the Nationalists had proceeded with the elections that had been mandated by the bitterly contested National Assembly convened in the last months of the Marshall Mission. The election results were embarrassing to Chiang: in the new “broad-based” government, his party machine had succeeded in making sure that every seat was won by the Nationalists. To achieve participation of even the friendly minority parties and independents, Chiang was forced to issue an ex post facto ruling that only those GMD candidates previously endorsed by the party could run for election. Several GMD candidates who had been voted into office without prior party endorsement were thus made to surrender their seats to non-GMD politicians.23 While the majority of delegates would still be linked to the party machine, the ruling nevertheless opened the door for some newcomers to participate in the National Assembly.

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Chiang considered such a move to broaden the participation in the Nationalist government essential for both political and economic reasons. Politically, Chiang needed to mask the continued dominance of the government by the CC Clique and the Whampoa Military Clique. This reactionary leadership had long been alienating the liberals in China and had prompted stirrings of such actions as the Third Party conspiracy. Moreover, Chiang needed to allay international suspicions, especially in the United States, that the GMD was nothing more than a corrupt, selfserving, despotic regime. The economic imperatives facing Chiang were closely linked to the political. At the behest of Secretary of State Marshall, General Albert Wedemeyer had been sent from Washington to China during August of 1947 to conduct an investigation of the overall situation. His report scathingly attacked the reactionary elements dominating the government and called for a sweeping reform, but it also recommended that a longterm aid-to-China program be established.24 The clear message Chiang drew form the Wedemeyer report was that if the Nationalists could demonstrate to Washington that they might be starting to take steps toward reform, there would be no reason for the American Congress to withhold support, and a generous aid package would be forthcoming. Chiang’s assessment was correct. In a State Department summary of Marshall’s testimony on the China aid package before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on February 20, 1948, the secretary was cited as saying, “It was evident that no long-range [economic] recovery program could be developed until the Chinese government had demonstrated its capacity to take, with substantial United States assistance, initial steps toward laying the basis for further constructive [reform] efforts.”25 On April 3, the China Aid Act, providing a four-hundred-million-dollar package for the Nationalists over the next fifteen months, was passed through Congress, contingent on the promise that Chinese government reforms would proceed. When the Nanjing government’s second National Assembly was convened in March of 1948, these political and economic imperatives formed the backdrop for what may well be described as an intraparty rebellion. The most important items on the agenda were the elections by the members of the Legislative Yuan of the president and vice president of the government. With political divisions and ill will marking the opening of the assembly, Chiang initially orchestrated a masterful political maneuver: he withdrew his candidacy for the presidency and urged the assembly instead to elect the eminent scholar and former ambassador to the United States, Hu Shi. Surprised by Chiang’s sudden announcement, the majority of the


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delegates closed ranks behind the Generalissimo and, fearful lest the government be deprived of “a strong hand at the helm of the ship of state,”26 demanded that he resubmit his name for the top post. The American embassy in China offered an insightful assessment of this development as follows: The party bosses of the GMD . . . intend[ed] to use the party machine and the prestige of the Generalissimo to control the new government as they had controlled the old, and they were prepared to use whatever means were necessary to accomplish this end. . . . To the party machine, the Generalissimo was an indispensable man. He had helped create and had protected the machine and since he ruled through it, it was indispensable to him as well. The Whampoa Generals, the Paoting Generals, and the Generals of no Clique whatsoever, . . . all of whom care little for the Nationalist Government, insisted that if he left the ship of state, so would they.27

Graciously deferring to this mandate of the assembly, Chiang agreed to assume the presidency. Chiang’s appearance of humility diffused for the moment much of the dissension within the Nationalist ranks and enhanced his personal prestige.28 Further, it seemed that it might begin to deflect both Communist and international criticism that he was only interested in “personal rule.” But Chiang’s success lasted just a few days. As the embassy report noted, “The circumstances of his past forced him once again to strive to bring the party machine with him in full power into the new Government, to exclude its opponents, and . . . to make the new Government susceptible to his personal control as had been that Government which was passing. Through an amendment to the Constitution, he obtained the full powers necessary to maintain his personal control.”29 Chiang immediately attempted to utilize his regained powers in an ill-fated effort to determine the outcome of the assembly’s subsequent vice-presidential election. His intervention shattered the party unity he had forged around his own presidential candidacy and sparked an unanticipated revolt and deep schism within the party ranks. Chiang’s antagonist in this rebellion was General Li Zongren. Li, a field commander of GMD troops in North China and a leading figure associated with the Third Party movement of the previous autumn, had developed a considerable following among moderates and reformers within the GMD. He chose to run for vice president but was immediately opposed by Chiang. The Generalissimo’s choice for the office was Sun Ke (Sun Fo), who over the past year had distinguished himself for his

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attempts to play on U.S.-Soviet Cold War hostilities to advance the GMD cause.30 Chiang, no longer displaying the political savvy that won him approval in the presidential election, turned to heavy-handed tactics to pressure Li into withdrawing from the race. He threatened Bai Chongxi, a military commander who supported Li, with secret court martial. Several others in Li’s camp were subjected to similar intimidation. On April 25, Li announced his withdrawal from the race, emphasizing that his action was, in the words of his associates, a “political maneuver designed to focus attention on threats and intimidation directed at his supporters by the Generalissimo, Guomindang bosses, and Whampoa clique.”31 Li, as Chiang had done just days earlier, chose to allow the office to seek him rather than himself seek the office. Adding a twist to the bizarre events, Sun Ke in turn withdrew his candidacy because he felt it would be “undemocratic to run without opposition.”32 The political pot was boiling. Reform elements within the GMD, outraged at Chiang’s attempt to reassert personal rule by hand-picking the vice president, coalesced around Li. These developments were encouraging to American officials. Stuart had hoped that Marshall’s plan for liberal leadership of the Chinese government might be realized during this National Assembly. Li Zongren was emerging as the figure who might facilitate such a change. Stuart saw Li as “interested in the vice-presidency as a platform for criticizing shortcomings of the government and suggesting remedial measures.” Even were he to fail in this campaign, the ambassador was heartened to note, Li would retire from the army and continue his criticisms as a private citizen.33 In Stuart’s estimation, however, Li had every chance of winning. Gathered around Li, the ambassador noted in a cable to Washington, were the “rank and file of the party and independents, including probably the majority of civil servants and army officers, [who] have come to believe that [the] country can survive [the] present crisis only through more liberal effective vigorous leadership than has been evident in the past.”34 Chiang’s interference on behalf of Sun Ke when Sun appeared to be losing to Li raised questions of “democratic constitutional government versus political autocratic rule.” Also, a pleased Stuart reported, “We are encouraged by the undeniable fact that democratic forces are now appearing and making themselves felt in protest against autocracy and reaction.”35 The next day, the ambassador noted with satisfaction, “Liberal and independent elements have successfully challenged control of the CC Clique[-]dominated party machine and the election of Li seems likely.”36 Indeed, Li Zongren was elected vice president on April 29. Backed into a political corner, Chiang had given assurances the day before of a secret


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balloting with an open tally of the results, and Li and Sun had both reentered the race. Li out-polled Sun 1438 to 1295. American consular officials immediately interpreted the results as “a smashing defeat for the CC Clique, a serious setback for the Generalissimo, . . . and a successful challenge by opposition elements.”37 In a more thorough analysis of the events taking place during the National Assembly, Minister-Counselor of the Embassy in China Lewis Clark concluded that “the liberals, or the reformers, . . . were able to demonstrate and make effective their strength by rallying behind Li Tsung-jen (Li Zongren), who emerged, whether qualified or not, as the great reformer.”38 In reference to Li, Clark observed, “The reformers now have a spokesman.” He added, “We can only hope that the liberal elements which have expressed themselves will be able to assert strength toward reform within the Government and within the country sufficient to give some hope that the present onsweep of Communist expansion may be checked and some day reversed.”39 The political stakes for U.S. policy in the outcome of Li’s bid for election were very high, according to American consul general at Shanghai, John Cabot. In a message to Marshall sent two days before the election, Cabot identified a “very large proportion” of the “politically alert population” that was “fundamentally anti-Communist and anti-revolutionary.”40 This important sector felt that the Nanjing regime had to collapse under the weight of incompetence and corruption, that drastic reform was necessary, and that the granting of American aid to the government prior to thorough reform only served “to confirm the rotten regime on its path to disaster.” Cabot continued, “[The] hopes of these people, who include students, intellectuals, businessmen and many others, have to a significant extent been pinned on Li Tsung-jen’s (Li Zongren’s) candidacy which, rightly or wrongly, many identify with reform and progress.”41 If Li were to win and promote reform, Cabot contended, these liberals would swing over to support the government and support American aid. If Li were to fail, however, they would turn to the Communist Party as the only alternative; anti-Americanism would stiffen, and the CCP would draw closer to Communism “of a more and more Soviet nature.”42 The stakes were high indeed! Cabot’s concerns about the CCP’s preparations to do battle with the United States for the allegiance of these middle forces were raised later in that same message to Marshall as follows: That Communists are preparing to exploit such contingencies [stemming from failure to reform] would seem to be indicated by [a] report that Chou

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En-lai (Zhou Enlai) is advocating more emphasis on [the] wooing of liberals and by [an] article by Communist “theoretician” Jen Pi-shih (Ren Bishi) published in [an] April issue of Hong King [sic] Communist publication Masses. While we have not seen this article, we have learned from two good sources that it has caused excitement in local intellectual and liberal circles; and that its main thesis is an admission that Communists have been too severe toward landowners (small, middle and large), industrialists and intellectuals, and will have to treat them more considerately. With respect to intellectuals, the article is said to be aimed directly at those who have lost faith in the government but have hitherto feared persecution by the Communists and to play skillfully on the theme of [the] “futility of supporting rotten regime” when good existence under Communists is guaranteed.43

Cabot’s worries seem to have been well founded. Intellectuals were indeed becoming increasingly bold in their antigovernment thoughts and actions.

L EFT-W ING I NTELLECTUALS TAKE THE O FFENSIVE Throughout the first half of 1948, a stream of criticism of the Nationalist government emanated from Hong Kong, the British colonial possession that was largely beyond the reach of Chiang’s censorship and police forces. The port city had become a lively refuge for political activists fleeing GMD persecution. Joining members of the Communist Party were the leaders of the Democratic League who had organized the new Central Executive Committee and produced the League’s new programme in January; leftleaning members of the Nationalist Party, including Marshall Li Jishen, who in January founded the anti-Chiang “Guomindang Revolutionary Committee” (GMDRC); representatives of the moderate Political Science Clique of the GMD; and many independent activists. Conservative and official Nationalist perspectives were also represented. From within this highly charged political milieu arose stiff opposition on the part of leftwing intellectuals to the continued American attempts to win the middle forces away from the Communist side. One of the first incidents in 1948 to arouse public comment was John Leighton Stuart’s February 20 “Message to the Chinese People.” Introducing the logic behind the China Aid Act then being brought before Congress, Stuart communicated American concern for the “common people” of China, emphasizing their dilemma of being subject to either “extreme reactionary elements” or “extreme radicals.” Expanding upon Marshall’s policy of fostering the middle forces to include now-young


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activists as well as established liberal reformers, the ambassador particularly expressed his confidence in the students and their “patriotic idealism” to lead in the new “public-spirited effort” to establish a truly free democracy.44 While conservatives responded in support of Stuart’s view—though at the same time commenting that China’s liberals were “pitifully weak and not equal to the task”45—the pro-Communist newspaper Huashang bao published a strongly worded editorial that condemned Stuart for intending to cover up “the bloody crimes which the American imperialists have committed and are still committing in China.” Moreover, the editorial charged that Stuart’s words were “intended to fool some of our naïve intellectuals or ‘liberals’ to strengthen their illusions about U.S. imperialism.” Stuart’s message was in keeping with the Third Party movement, the article claimed, designed “to save Chiang Kai-shek’s government from falling to pieces.” Stuart thus “inadvertently” revealed the U.S. sponsorship of the Third Party movement, the piece concluded, and “helped tear away the masks of China’s ‘liberals.’”46 The editorial is particularly noteworthy for three reasons. First, it revealed that pro-Communist forces, perhaps reflecting the position of the CCP itself, had by early 1948 become entirely dismissive of any “Third Party” initiative, in this case going so far as to condemn such activism as nothing more than an attempt to sustain the current regime. Earlier editorials on the middle forces tended to emphasize the progressive nature of their opposition to the Chiang regime and to U.S. policy and intervention in China. Now the emphasis centered on the bankruptcy of any effort to effect change by means other than revolution. Four months earlier, at the time of the dissolution of the Democratic League, the CCP had in fact declared the third road to be a dead end. The Huashang bao article of early 1948 went a step further in castigating those who still were attempting to take a third road. A second point to be drawn from the article was its recognition that, whatever the American role in the Third Party movement might have been, it was indeed U.S. policy to develop liberal leadership of the government under Chiang Kai-shek. Although the United States often voiced its strong opposition to the “extreme reactionaries” within the GMD, it would not take action to oppose Chiang Kai-shek—even though more than a year earlier, Stuart had acknowledged that perhaps there had been a “modicum of truth” in Zhou Enlai’s assertion that Chiang himself was the Nationalists’ “chief reactionary.”47 Regardless of that admission, American policy would remain the same: it would support the liberals and

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support reform, but only within the context of overall support for Chiang Kai-shek. Third, the editorial is interesting because of its tone. Apparently, the leftists who wrote the piece felt that patient persuasion and appealing to the intellectuals’ interests were not the appropriate forms of struggle to win them over at the moment. Rather, the editorial is characterized by a sharp denunciation of the United States and an implicit challenge to the intellectuals to break with their “naïvité.” Thus it seems that the battle for the middle forces was carried out by Communists and their supporters in a confrontational as well as a conciliatory form, reflecting the oftstated CCP dictum that there must be both unity and struggle in the united front. Two days after Stuart’s message was published, the ambassador held a press conference in which he made the comment that his personal desire was for the CCP and GMD to resume peace talks.48 Although Stuart quickly rescinded the statement49—promoting talks with Communists was a political liability in Washington by early 1948—the idea of another American peace initiative was seized upon by the Huashang bao to expose “the results desired by the Americans and Chiang Kai-shek.” Their motives for peace talks included, according to the newspaper, (1) the “concealment of United States crimes” in providing aid that would prolong the civil war; (2) granting Chiang a respite from his deteriorating military position until the aid arrived; (3) winning over to the GMD side “liberals” and “middle roaders” who sought peace; and (4) transferring of the responsibility for continued civil war to the “democratic parties,” and even more so to the CCP.50 To further expose “American motives” and to frustrate American attempts to win over the liberals, well-known leftist political figures and intellectuals in Hong Kong gathered on March 3 to respond publicly to Stuart’s message. Shen Junru, who now was the leading spokesperson of the reorganized Democratic League, stated, “No true liberal will take part in the so-called ‘liberal’ movement. True liberals, if they take part in any movement at all, will undoubtedly choose the side of the forces of democracy.” Widely read author Guo Moruo asserted, “There can be no peace and liberalism unless the U.S.-Chiang Kai-shek team is thoroughly beaten.”51 Two weeks later, similar criticisms were raised in response to the announcement that a “Chinese Association for Social and Economic Research,” composed of “50 scholars and eminent personages,” had been founded in Beiping. Although at first American officials thought that Hu Shi was behind the association and that it might turn into a political party


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in support of Li Zongren, an Executive Committee member on April 8 disavowed Hu’s initiating role and claimed that the association sought only to be a kind of “Chinese Fabian society which would exercise political influence through writing, but not through active participation in politics.”52 Leftist author Mao Dun commented that the association was “identical with the ‘new third party’ or ‘middle road movement.’ Its purpose,” Mao averred, “[was] to attract Chinese liberals and intellectuals to the GMD camp.” Historian Jian Bozan noted the significance of the fact that the association was founded shortly after Stuart’s message. Jian claimed that the association’s published “32 creeds” boiled down to the following three main points: (1) election, not armed revolution, (2) no land reform that would threaten landlord interests, and (3) opposition to the Soviet Union and support for the United States. The new organization in Jian’s view was therefore nothing less than a “conspiracy to save the GMD dictatorship.”53 Such criticism by some of China’s best-known intellectuals of American attempts—or, in the case of the Chinese Association for Social and Economic Research, what appeared to them to be an attempt—to attract and organize Chinese liberals seems to have had a profound effect. After the criticisms of late March, the association in early April made the decision to tone down its political commentaries.54 More and more intellectuals were gravitating toward the left. Even the official GMD organ, the Guomin ribao, suggested this leftward trend when it editorialized on April 23, “China’s liberals have never contributed constructive suggestions to the Chinese government.” Furthermore, the article continued, recent calls for “a new government of liberals and for disarmament played into the hands of the CCP.”55 While the intellectuals were indeed growing more and more disenchanted with the Nationalist government, however, they did not automatically side with the Communists. It took careful and continuous work on the part of the CCP to provide the liberal democrats with an attractive alternative.

A NTI -“L EFTISM ”: CCP P OLICIES TO W IN O VER THE M IDDLE F ORCES Official Communist organs responded to political developments in the spring of 1948 by trying to bring wavering elements into the united front under CCP leadership. Broadly applying the themes stressed in Mao’s December Central Committee report, “On the Present Situation and Our

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Tasks” (see Chapter 3 in this volume), the Communist Party, for the duration of the civil war, consistently emphasized the crucial role of the middle forces in the “new democratic revolution.” Responding to the demands raised by these liberals for an end to civil war and for democracy, the CCP publicly called for “Peace through victory over Chiang Kai-shek” and propagated the notion of “anti-‘Leftism’” to reassure the middle forces that their interests would be protected. Mao’s writings throughout the first months of 1948 assailed the party’s “‘Left’ deviations.” On January 18, for example, Mao wrote “Some Important Problems of the Party’s Present Policy.” Among the most serious problems, he noted, was that of “not pay[ing] attention to winning over all the allies that should be won over.” He then listed these potential allies as follows: “middle peasants, small independent craftsmen and traders, the middle bourgeoisie, students, teachers, professors, and ordinary intellectuals, ordinary government employees, professionals and enlightened gentry.” In making this mistake, Mao contended, the party was “committing a ‘Left’ opportunist error.”56 Mao continued his exceptionally strong emphasis on intellectual types when he warned, “We must avoid adopting any adventurist policies towards students, teachers, professors, scientific workers, art workers and ordinary intellectuals. The experience of China’s student movements and revolutionary struggles has proved that the overwhelming majority of these people can take part in the revolution or remain neutral; the die-hard counter-revolutionaries are a tiny minority.”57 Mao offered similar warnings against “adventurism” in regard to the proper treatment of middle and small industrialists and merchants.58 In a March 1 article, Mao turned his attention more directly to these business classes, continuing to emphasize this theme of anti-“Leftism.” Explaining that the new-democratic revolution was “different from a socialist revolution such as the October Revolution,” Mao maintained that at the present stage, the national bourgeoisie might “either join in the struggle against the United States and Chiang Kai-shek or remain neutral.” Thus it was both “possible and necessary to unite with them.” To achieve this aim, Mao admonished, the party had to “be prudent” and protect these capitalists’ economic interests; otherwise, the errors would lead to serious consequences.59 Mao noted, for example, that in the cities in the Northeast where they had begun to take over the administration, the “leftist” notion of worker “relief” (sharp wage increases, radical reductions in working hours, and generous benefit packages) had debilitated industrial production and impaired the very cause of the people’s revolution. The tendency for Communists to one-sidedly—and with


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short-sightedness—support immediate worker demands against capital may have been natural, but it was wrong. Such practices did not coincide with the programme of New Democracy, which, while basing itself on working-class leadership, nonetheless called for certain concessions to capital.60 Indeed, in its competition with the CCP for the allegiance of the middle forces, the United States understood the Communists’ predicament, and identified as one of the primary “difficulties” facing the CCP in 1948 the “shortage of qualified administrative personnel for political posts, and a lack of personnel with the more advanced economic skills.”61 Before the end of March, however, Mao was able to note with satisfaction that work among the middle forces was proceeding favorably. He declared that those who had for a time advocated a “third road”—perhaps referring to Feng Yuxiang, Li Jishen, and their coconspirators62—had now “accepted the Party’s slogans,” declaring their opposition to Chiang and the United States and their unity with the CCP and the Soviet Union. Although the party would continue to struggle with what it considered to be their “erroneous views,” the democrats would be increasingly important participants in the new government (as representatives of their social base, the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie) especially as more and more cities would be captured.63 Indeed, during the month-long session of the second National Assembly that adjourned on May 1, 1948, fifty cities and towns were taken by the People’s Liberation Army, including Luoyang, Weixian, and Songhe. Perhaps because he was preoccupied with these military campaigns, Mao himself only briefly mentioned the assembly in his writings, concluding that Chiang’s election as president would merely serve to further discredit him.64 But the CCP did officially respond to the political developments surrounding the National Assembly with a pair of lengthy radio broadcasts in late May. Before turning to a discussion of these broadcasts, however, it is important to note the American position on the National Assembly visà-vis Communism.

A MERICAN A NTI -C OMMUNISM AND THE A DJUSTMENT OF U.S. C HINA P OLICY As previously discussed, American officials in China were generally enthusiastic about Li Zongren’s emergence as a figure around whom reform forces in the GMD appeared to be rallying. The analysis of Li’s success offered by Lewis Clark, however, expressed not only the optimism shared widely by consular personnel, but also the following two serious reservations: first,

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Li was as yet unproven as a leader, and it was not clear that he would be able to unite effectively his disorganized base of support; second, there existed “the possibility that he might seek accommodation with the Communists, especially through his contact with the KMT (GMD) Revolutionary Committee in Hong Kong.”65 It was in fact this final concern that prevented the United States from throwing its full support behind Li. In Stuart’s May 3 report to Marshall on the proceedings of the National Assembly, the ambassador indicated that the GMD Revolutionary Committee claimed to have already established “a definite time schedule . . . for the removal of the Generalissimo.” He added that the Revolutionary Committee was in close contact with Li and was even making overtures toward Song Ziwen (T. V. Soong). Two main factions seemed to be coalescing, locked in a “life and death struggle.” But if Li and the Revolutionary Committee were successful against Chiang and the CC and Whampoa Cliques, it appeared probable that “Li from choice or necessity [would] be driven into an understanding with the Communists.”66 While the United States was not yet prepared to write off completely either Li Zongren or the GMDRC, cold war politics were quickly rendering any such “understanding” with the Communists unacceptable to Washington. On March 11, Truman had held a press conference at which he was questioned as to whether or not he still stood by his statement of December 15, 1945, which called for a coalition government in China—a call that at that time clearly was aimed at GMD-CCP cooperation. Truman replied that his statement still applied, but now he offered a very different definition of the coalition he had in mind. As reported the China White Paper, Truman “explained that it was not the policy of the United States to urge the National Government of China to take Communists into the Government. . . . He expressed his hope that the Chinese liberals would be taken into the Government, but stated that ‘we did not want any Communists in the Government of China or anywhere else if we could help it.’”67 Within America’s domestic political context of heated election-year campaigning and a rising tide of anti-Communism, Truman could not even uphold the longstanding U.S. policy of promoting a coalition government to “take in” the Communists. Little did it matter in 1948 that the American concept of coalition was itself anti-Communist; the appearance of support for the legitimacy of Communist participation in government was enough to make the advocacy of coalition a political liability. Thus it was that no matter how attractive Li Zongren was to American officials as a liberal reformer, the perception that he would have to come


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to terms with the CCP if he took power limited what support he might otherwise have expected from Washington. As unsettling to the United States as had been Chiang’s maneuvering at the assembly to block Li’s vice presidential candidacy, his earlier success at the same congress in rallying support for his own presidential bid and his unwavering anti-Communism nevertheless assured him of continued backing from the United States. The American policy in mid-1948, therefore, was to persist in encouraging the liberals to pressure for reform, but ultimately to continue to extend the support that had consistently been afforded Chiang Kai-shek. Stuart ended his report to Marshall with the following words that nicely summarized the U.S. position: “We shall have to watch developments with extreme care, yet our efforts should, we believe, be directed toward influencing the Generalissimo to accept the situation and support more liberal policies.”68

T HE L IMITS OF L IBERALISM : T HE CCP R ESPONDS TO THE N ATIONAL A SSEMBLY The official Chinese Communist Party response to the National Assembly was broadcast by North Shaanxi Radio on May 24. Seizing on the intragovernmental dissension manifested in the vice presidential election, the Communists disparaged Chiang Kai-shek as “the representative of the most corrupt and most reactionary feudal comprador bloc in China.”69 The commentary welcomed the student demonstrations in Shanghai on May 4 in which the results of the National Assembly were “celebrated” by the burning of effigies of “American aggressors” and the “dictator” Chiang. Chiang’s antipopular policies had so aroused the hatred of the masses, according to this report, that both Chinese and American “reactionary cliques” might soon dump the Generalissimo.70 It is significant that the Communist analysis was no less harsh in its treatment of Li Zongren. At this point in time, Li apparently was not counted as one of the “middle forces” to be won over or neutralized. His repressive record of rule in Guangxi Province, his siding with Chiang’s anti-Communist purge in 1927, and his military exploits against the PLA in the current civil war all gave evidence that Li was “not only as counterrevolutionary as Chiang Kai-shek, but a partisan in Chiang Kai-shek’s long term counter-revolutionary collaboration.”71 Li, along with Hu Shi, the Chinese Association for Social and Economic Research, and the Political Science Clique associated with the large-circulation newspaper [Dagong bao], were all part of a Chinese and American “policy of concealment,” a

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policy that would preserve the “essence of the reactionary clique’s rule” under the signpost of the “Third Road.”72 The Communist position was not to unite with this new breed of “Third Roaders,” but rather to expose them and “overthrow . . . the foundation” of reaction, which was “imperialism and the system of . . . feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism.”73 The reformers within the GMD who gravitated toward support of Li Zongren at the National Assembly, therefore, were not the object of CCP attempts to win over the middle forces. In May of 1948, the United States need not have worried, as Consul General John Cabot did, that “in [the] contest for support of the middle-roaders,” the Communists would try “to woo Li from the Government fold.”74 Perhaps the Communists felt it was unnecessary to “woo Li” because of the support they were garnering from other quarters. The CCP had opposed the National Assembly, and on May Day they offered their alternative, calling for “the swift convening of a new Political Consultative Conference (PCC) by all liberals, democrats, and independent groups and organizations and all social luminaries to discuss and approve the calling of a People’s Congress to establish a Democratic Coalition Government.”75 It will be remembered that many leftist liberals and revolutionary intellectuals in Hong Kong had already in March rejected the “Third Road” as a cover for GMD reaction. They were responsive to the Communists’ proposal to convene a new PCC, and on June 4, the Huashang bao printed a statement of support for the May Day Call, signed by 125 “patriotic leaders in Hong Kong.”76 The CCP’s claim that “the people entertain no illusions about him [Chiang]”77—in other words, that he was the chief reactionary in the GMD—was true for vast and growing numbers of democrats. But even though most liberals thus entertained “no illusions” about the Generalissimo and had aligned themselves with the CCP, other democrats were nevertheless still attracted to the anti-Chiang banner of Li Zongren and the GMD reformers—a banner the CCP deemed counterrevolutionary. The political middle ground may have shifted, but the battle for those liberals still seeking to occupy it was not yet over. On balance, however, developments within China added up to a substantial increase in support for the Chinese Communist Party from the middle forces by the summer of 1948. On the one side was the Guomindang—riddled with open factionalism, increasingly repressive, autocratic, and responsible for economic misery and a devastating civil war; on the other side was the Communist Party—united in purpose and widely perceived as democratic, dedicated to the people’s and the nation’s


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welfare, and increasingly committed to the protection of the interests of the middle forces. If these domestic factors had not been enough to tip the scales in favor of the CCP, yet another factor, an international factor, had appeared during the same period in 1947 and 1948—a change in the orientation of America’s broader East-Asia policy—that drew even more of the wavering middle elements to the Communist side.


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T H E B AT T L E F O R T H E M I D D L E F O R C E S P E A K S : T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L F A C T O R , 1947–48—J A PA N

By July 1948, the sputtering American policy toward China was nearing

its last gasp. U.S. posture in the aftermath of the April session of the National Assembly demonstrated that as far as China’s domestic political situation was concerned, Washington’s anti-Communism and support for the status quo had trumped Marshall’s directive to win over the liberals in order to press reform on Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist Party. The liberals, after all, stood for broad participation in politics and therefore were willing to work with the Communists within the framework of a coalition government. Even the moderates within the Nationalist Party, faced as they were with ever-widening military setbacks, were increasingly ready to come to terms with the CCP to prevent the government’s total collapse. Only the autocratic Generalissimo, along with his allies in the most reactionary factions of the GMD, stood firmly against any accommodation with the Communists. As cold war battle lines were drawn around the globe, this stance won Chiang the continued backing of the United States. The irony of this course was that U.S. support for Chiang, dictated by an unbending anti-Communism, sullied America’s credibility with China’s democratic middle forces, and these liberals increasingly came to embrace the Communist alternative of New Democracy. Painfully aware of this inherent dilemma in its China policy, the United States came to the realization that China would not achieve the unity and

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strength necessary for it to play the leading role in postwar Asia that Roosevelt had envisioned during World War II. In the search for an alternative view, policy makers in Washington were attracted to a new perspective on international relations offered by historian and diplomat George Kennan, a vision that came to be known succinctly as “containment of Communism.” Kennan argued that the strategic aim for the United States during the Cold War should be to draw the line against the expansion of Communist political influence beyond its existing borders.1 Kennan identified five industrial centers of the world (the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union) and stressed that U.S. security rested on the fate of these countries. These five, according to Kennan, were the only nations with the economic and military potential to threaten America if they turned hostile. “Only one of these [centers] was under Communist control,” Kennan later recalled in his Memoirs. He continued, “I defined the main task of containment, accordingly, as seeing to it that none of the remaining ones fell under such control.”2 In Europe, therefore, Kennan advocated the strengthening of Britain and Germany as a crucial element of U.S. postwar objectives. His call was soon answered in the twin initiatives of the Marshall Plan and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). In East Asia, Kennan maintained that Japan—then under American occupation—should be built up as the region’s main defense against Communist expansion. Kennan later disclosed that he had been convinced at the time that America’s “unsound commitments” in China should be liquidated.3 He had concluded that the Nationalists had become a lost cause in a debacle of their own making, and he doubted that the Chinese Communists could succeed in governing all of China where the GMD had failed. Most important in Kennan’s evaluation of the situation, however, was the fact that China, after all, lacked the industrial and military capacity to threaten the United States.4 Kennan’s dismissive attitude toward China, however, was far less public than his widely circulated admonition to policy makers that the United States should confront Communism, the Soviet Union in particular, “with unalterable counterforce at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world.”5 Opposing Communism “at every point” became the battle cry of the intensifying Cold War. When Truman issued his call in March 1947 for the United States to take a stand against “totalitarianism” in Greece and Turkey in order to prevent its spread both eastward and westward, the antiCommunist wind sweeping Washington bent the president’s words into a

T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L FA C T O R , 1 9 4 7 – 4 8 — J A PA N

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general call to oppose any Communist activity, anywhere. In such an atmosphere, the growing Communist insurgency in China could not be dismissed as readily as Kennan may have privately wished. The China Lobby constantly pressured for increased aid to Chiang Kai-shek, and the State Department and White House continued to provide Chiang’s Nationalist government with millions of dollars in assistance. Thus, it was not Kennan’s personal views on China that carried the day in Washington, but rather his “containment” theory as the strategic objective for the early cold war period. Embracing this new vision, the Truman administration in 1948 made the momentous decision to follow Kennan’s recommendations regarding Japan. It set as a new priority the strengthening of America’s recent nemesis in the Pacific War to assume the previously unexpected role of chief facilitator of American interests in postwar Asia. United States policy makers may well have had no idea how deeply this shift in America’s posture toward Japan would offend the sensibilities of other Asians. But in China, where millions of people had suffered and died through the eight years and more of brutal occupation and war, the news of the American decision to build up Japan triggered massive antiJapanese and, even more, anti-American protest.6 Chinese concerns about American support for Japan resulted, as early as 1947, in the publication of newspaper articles and petitions to arouse public opinion. From August 1947 until April 1948, the protest gathered strength in proportion to American efforts to strengthen Japan. Finally, between May and July of 1948, Chinese anger over America’s Japan policy spilled into the streets with large-scale rallies and demonstrations, often marked by violent confrontations. The demonstrations were of such a scale that, according to a State Department report, they “extended throughout the length and breadth of the country and even into Manchuria, wherever student groups were found.”7 Participants in this Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan included not only students, professors, and educational administrators, but also journalists, industrialists and merchants, members of women’s organizations, lawyers, and even a few legislators from within the GMD itself—precisely the middle forces Marshall and Stuart had hoped to win away from the Communists and to promote as leaders of reform within the Nationalist government. Indeed, despite the intensified efforts of Chiang’s repressive regime to crack down on activists, this movement became the broadest social protest of the civil war period. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was also the last major social movement prior to the Communist seizure of power. To the consternation of the United States, the liberal democrats who first launched this movement would, during the

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protest’s more active phase, not only turn their backs on America, but also welcome the more experienced Chinese Communist Party to step forward and assume leadership. The anger in China that led to this outcome, however, did not have to wait until the new U.S.-Japan policy was completely in place. Prior to 1948, elements of America’s initial postwar policy to demilitarize and democratize Japan had already been modified,8 and concerned Chinese observers began noting these changes with apprehension.

E ARLY C HINESE A NXIETIES

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A MERICA’ S J APAN P OLICY

As early as January 1947, both the liberal Democratic League and the Communist Party were expressing their opposition toward America’s Japan policy. The League warned of “a minority of short-sighted Americans” who “supported the revival of Japan in order to control Asia,” and called upon the United States to “wake up” to the serious implications for the Chinese of such a policy.9 The CCP’s concerns focused on the political decision the United States made at the outset of the Occupation to cooperate with a postwar Japanese government that included many conservative, ultranationalist figures who had been associated with the “fascist” wartime leadership. In his New Year’s assessment of the world situation, Communist spokesman Lu Dingyi charged that America supports Chiang Kai-shek and other reactionaries in oppressing the Chinese people. In Japan it supports Yoshida [Shigeru] and other reactionaries in oppressing the Japanese people, and helps them to revive the policy of aggression towards China. At the present time the reactionaries of both China and Japan are occupying the same position as running dogs of America, and the peoples of both China and Japan are in the same position bearing the oppression of American imperialism.10

Interestingly, Lu’s commentary on Japan was made in the context of his analysis that “the American policy with regard to all colonial and semicolonial nations is to transform them into American colonies or dependencies.”11 The implication was that although Japan had once been an imperialist country, its defeat in World War II and subsequent occupation by the United States had rendered it a semicolony. Despite the similarities Lu thus observed between China’s and Japan’s semicolonial status, he nevertheless saw the potential for a revival of Japanese aggression, presumably on the basis of Japan’s ability to be transformed quickly back into


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an imperialist power. Lu’s inclusion of Japan among the semicolonial nations of the world, therefore, was ambiguous in that it recognized imperialist elements being resuscitated within Japan that might soon threaten China. Ultimately, it was this threat that set off the explosion of Chinese hostility toward the United States. While these Chinese critics accurately identified the ideological and political bent of Japan’s postwar regime,12 America’s initial postwar occupation policy had in fact centered on the two tasks of democratizing Japan and dismantling the Imperial war machine. Chief among Japanese institutions targeted had been the powerful armed forces and the big business combines, the zaibatsu. In line with these tasks, occupation authorities had released from jail members of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) who had languished in confinement throughout the war. The Communists, after all, had been the only forces within Japan to have consistently opposed the militarist government and the wartime ideology of the emperor-centered national polity. Communist organizing efforts, the occupation authorities surmised, could play a crucial role in the postwar reconstruction of Japanese civil society. As early as 1946, however, reversals became evident in selected areas of occupation policy, 13 and during 1947, the limits of Americaninspired Japanese democracy were harshly revealed when the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan, General Douglas MacArthur, suppressed by fiat a general strike planned by the rapidly growing labor movement. Fearing that economic crisis and social instability in Japan would strengthen the influence of the JCP and play into the hands of the Soviet Union, American government and business leaders reached a new consensus consistent with Kennan’s containment doctrine: that the situation necessitated the restoration of Japan’s “most capable” capitalists to their former positions, regardless of their past association with the military during the Pacific War. These reversals of American policy did not sit well with nationalistic Chinese. It had been only two short years since the war had ended, and those who had resisted the Japanese occupation of their country— Communists, liberals, and even some Nationalists—expressed deep misgivings over U.S. efforts to rebuild Japan.

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T HE O RIGINS OF THE M OVEMENT TO O PPOSE U.S. S UPPORT OF J APAN In July 1947, an economic analyst at the Central Bank of China, a liberal named Meng Xianzhang, wrote an article published in Shanghai’s largest newspaper, the Dagong bao, warning of a variety of developments in Japan that he thought should give patriotic Chinese cause for concern. The specific issue that had impelled Meng to research these troubling developments was a policy shift announced on June 10, 1947, by General MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan. MacArthur declared that the United States would “partially lift the economic blockade of Japan” and authorize the resumption of private international trade with Japan as of August 15.14 To highly nationalistic Chinese businesspeople (and to economic analysts like Meng Xianzhang), SCAP’s open trade announcement quickly raised fears that soon Japanese products might flood China’s coastal markets, threatening the very existence of China’s infant national industries and further aggravating the general economic crisis in China at the time. Anxious to investigate in more detail the ramifications for China of the U.S. trade announcement, Meng undertook a careful reading of newspaper accounts and government reports from Tokyo and uncovered an array of evidence suggesting to him that the roots of Japanese militarism, far from being totally eliminated, were showing the following signs of renewed life: the United States was still operating wartime military bases and airfields; conservative Japanese officials were voicing their desire to recruit their own army and air force to assume responsibility for the country’s security; Japanese ultranationalists were appealing to the United States to recognize that the Japanese military had in fact struck the first blows of what Truman was now identifying as a noble anti-Communist crusade with its 1937 invasion of China; and proponents of Japanese expansionism were clamoring against relinquishing imperialist territorial acquisitions, including claims in Manchuria, Taiwan, and Korea.15 Meng’s concerns were soon taken up by the democratic organization he belonged to, the September 3 Study Society (Jiusan xueshe). The society had originally been founded in 1943 as the Forum for Democracy and Science. Its members included well-known educators and activists, and its chief organizer was the famous Xu Deheng, a leader of China’s watershed May 4th Movement of 1919. Although the May 4th Movement had championed the modernization of China by means of democracy and science, its central event had been a student demonstration in Beijing vehemently denouncing the Versailles Treaty, which ceded German colonial


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possessions in China to Japan. The forum was therefore organized during the war to pressure the Nationalist government to promote popular democracy and popular science and to publicly urge unity among all Chinese in the War of Resistance to Japanese Aggression. Anti-Japanese activism was central to the forum’s identity, and when the war ended, the organization changed its name to mark the date in China of Japan’s official surrender to Allied forces: September 3.16 The September 3 Study Society remained watchful of postwar developments in Japan, and, spurred by Meng’s research, its members moved into action to make plans for protesting America’s apparent efforts to revive Japan. Shortly after Meng’s piece appeared, the group published a followup article in the Dagong bao. This article was carried not only in the Shanghai edition of the paper, but also in the major cities of Tianjin, Chongqing, and Hong Kong. Entitled “Our Opinion on the Japan Question,” it provided still greater detail of troubling developments in Japan.17 As had Meng’s article, this opinion piece used the opening of Japanese trade as a springboard for a broad attack against the rebuilding of Japan. It argued that the trade decision would have two effects on China. First, as Meng had earlier claimed, the resumption of the flow of Japanese goods into mainland coastal markets would strike a fatal blow to China’s weak national industry. Second, since Chinese exports to Japan were mainly raw materials (especially iron ore and coal), the opening of trade would result in the re-creation of the prewar economic relationship between the two countries: “industrial Japan, agricultural China.”18 The article summarized Chinese grievances about Japan as follows: Under the unilateral management and assistance of the United States, in less than two years Japan’s economic strength has been quickly restored, and the evil fascist leftovers are daily and increasingly rearing their heads. Japanese militarism, having just been defeated, is making a come-back—and is certain to select China as its target for invasion. It took an eight-year war to overcome Japan. Now, before a peace treaty has been signed, before reparations have been paid, before a whole coterie of war criminals has been brought to justice, before our country has recovered from its tribulations, Japanese fascist remnants plan to wreck our weak national industry, forcing us once again to become Japan’s economic colony.19

Only after the eradication of militarism and the establishment of a genuine democracy, the authors maintained, could harmonious, mutually beneficial relations be achieved with Japan. To bring about such goals, the article continued, it was necessary to conclude a peace treaty at the earliest

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possible date. The Chinese deserved their rightful voice in negotiations, and, in particular, they deserved veto power. The various elements of this article reflected four basic themes that were repeated time and again throughout the next year as the Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan developed. First, the article demonstrated that some influential Chinese harbored very real fears of Japanese economic domination, domination that would halt any strides the Chinese might take toward industrialization. For these nationalists, industrialization was the only way out of economic backwardness. Second, the article showed that by the summer of 1947, the Chinese already feared that the implications of America’s emerging postwar strategy for the buildup of former enemies in the name of anti-Sovietism and anti-Communism, combined with the continued presence and activity of unrepentant Japanese militarists, might very well lead once again to war. Two such scenarios emerged, the first being a re-enactment of Japan’s earlier aggression in China, the second being a war directed by the United States against the USSR with Japan as the military base and China as the battleground. Although the article demonstrated well-reasoned Chinese concerns about U.S. anti-Communism, it nevertheless did not (and probably could not, at that early date) appreciate the growing consensus in Washington around Kennan’s postwar strategic vision of “containment of Communism.” This failure to recognize the growing strength of the U.S. commitment to reviving Japan—economically, at least—explains the third theme illustrated by the article: in spite of the blame laid on the United States for its unilateral support for the rebuilding of Japan, many Chinese critics remained ambivalent toward America. If only the United States could see how it was being manipulated by Japanese militarists, the authors believed, then it could change its policy and prevent the development of the terrible consequences attendant to Japanese revival. Fourth, the article revealed that these Chinese liberals were concerned about the genuine democratization of Japan. The political strength of the old prewar elites, often referred to in movement publications as “fascists,” precluded Chinese acceptance of American reasoning for aiding Japan. According to the authors, only the rapid implementation of a peace treaty that guaranteed both the thorough demilitarization of Japan and the longterm security interests of China could assure such democratization. In view of the conservative hold on the Japanese government and in the absence of a peace treaty, the liberals maintained, MacArthur’s claims that democratization had been achieved were groundless, and therefore no


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possibility existed at present for the establishment of relations with Japan based on mutual coexistence and mutual benefit. The issue of democracy was central not only to the international concerns of the September 3 Study Society; it was central to its concerns about the domestic political situation within China, as well. Events in Japan had first given rise to the call to launch the Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan.20 Events in China quickly spurred on that struggle.

M OVEMENT TO O PPOSE U.S. S UPPORT OF J APAN : P HASE I, T HE B ATTLE IN THE P RESS Although the society published another article signed by eighteen influential figures on September 10, 1947,21 the movement’s momentum was temporarily slowed by increasing domestic political repression over the next several months. Already in late August it had become evident that the Nationalist government’s July 7 Anti-Communist Mobilization Decree, proclaiming that all the country’s resources would be channeled into the suppression of the CCP, was also being applied to the Democratic League, the largest and most influential of China’s democratic parties and groups. The League, it will be remembered, had come into increasing conflict with the Nationalists over what it considered violations of the accords reached at the Political Consultative Conference in early 1946, and the government responded to the League’s opposition with increased repression. On October 27, it declared the League an illegal organization. One member of the September 3 Study Society later recalled that Guomindang repression during those days was characterized by “random attacks, random arrests, and random killings,” throwing a chill over all the democratic groups in China.22 Faced with these dangerous conditions, Chu Fucheng, a business leader who headed the Shanghai branch of the September 3 Study Society,23 met with several liberal luminaries, including the Democratic League’s Shen Junru, to determine a course of action. They decided to prepare for underground political activity and to pursue with greater vigor the Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan. The movement would serve as a means to rally forces against America’s Asia policies, Japanese militarism, and GMD reaction, all at the same time. How would it be possible, these liberals reasoned, for the Nationalist Party to suppress a patriotic movement opposed to the revival of the recently defeated enemy?24 The September 3 Study Society and the other democrats who joined together to push forward the movement gauged the political situation

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correctly. The possibility that Japan might be sufficiently revived once again to threaten China economically and militarily did indeed raise widespread concern among diverse social strata across the ideological spectrum. The issue ultimately even gave rise to disputes within the Guomindang itself. The very breadth of the emotional outpouring of anxiety over the restoration of Japan would make it extremely difficult for the Nationalist government to quash the protests. In the winter of 1947–48, a flurry of animated newspaper editorials would appear, sparking considerable public discussion of the implications of America’s Japan policy. These editorials would mark the initial broadening of the movement.25 After the dissolution of the Democratic League in November, activists chose the ongoing talks on the still unresolved question of the Japanese Peace Treaty as a theme around which to gather broader participation in their fledgling movement. In December, they published an article signed by more than fifty people (including the six members of the September 3 Study Society who had signed the August 3 article), entitled “Our Opinion on the Convening of the Preparatory Meeting for the Peace Treaty with Japan.” The article demanded that the Chinese have veto power over the provisions of the treaty, both because China had suffered the most at the hands of the Japanese during the war and because a revival of Japanese militarism would threaten China most directly. It accused the United States of disregarding the wishes of wartime President Franklin Roosevelt by pursuing a postwar policy that actively preserved German and Japanese militarism. The statement targeted both the American government and SCAP, claiming that they were now encouraging “Japanese reactionary, fascist militarism to raise its head once again.”26 The commentary concluded by calling on the Chinese government to represent the long-term interests of the nation, and on the Chinese people to shape a truly patriotic approach to foreign relations. In order to concentrate the strength of Chinese nationalism, the article advocated the establishment of an “Association on Chinese Policy toward Japan” comprised of all those who had studied or were interested in the Japan question and wanted to assist the government in regard to Japanese matters.27 Although such an association does not appear to have been formally established,28 the concerns raised by the September 3 Study Society about the restoration of Japan were indeed taken up in other circles. On January 16, 1948, ten days after U.S. Secretary of War Kenneth Royall delivered an important speech in San Francisco that called for limiting the breakup of Japan’s huge wartime economic conglomerates, the zaibatsu, the proCommunist, Hong Kong–based Huashang bao ran an editorial, “Don’t


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Be Soft toward Japan,” claiming that recent events had further revealed America’s true intentions to “tear up the Potsdam Declaration” and “revive Japanese imperialism and militarism.”29 Even without mention of the Royall speech—perhaps the editors were unaware of it—the newspaper called attention to MacArthur’s “Six-year Plan” for Japan that would result in the United States spending $1.5 billion on Japanese recovery. Further evidence of America’s revival of Japan included the following: MacArthur’s proposal for Japan to build unlimited shipping tonnage and to allow steel production to reach 1933–35 levels—levels that two years later would be sufficient to launch the Japanese invasion of China; hints from American officials that Japan should be allowed to rearm itself and become once again a Far Eastern power; a suggestion by a high U.S. official that another twenty important Japanese war criminals should be released; and the declaration by MacArthur that, even though Japanese production was on the rise, Japan would be unable to pay its war reparations. The first victim of the revival of Japan, the editorial warned, would be China.30 Rather than appealing to the Nationalist government, this editorial excoriated China’s political leaders for their alleged failure to oppose this menace and for their servility to the United States in selling out China’s rights and interests.31 The Guomindang had failed to protest the release of war criminals and the violation of China’s territorial waters by armed trawlers. It had even gone so far as to assist Japan’s revival of production by selling iron ore from Hainan Island’s mines to Japanese industrial interests. The editorial concluded with the accusation that “such a government is clearly a traitorous government.”32 Within the Guomindang-controlled areas, however, open criticism of the government was by necessity far more circumscribed than in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, the issue of U.S. support for Japan was a growing concern. Among the more important figures in China who took seriously Meng and Chu’s warnings of Japanese revival was Wang Yunsheng, the chief editor of the Shanghai edition of the Dagong bao. This newspaper was the voice of the Political Science Clique, a faction of the Guomindang representing politically moderate business and banking interests.33 As editor, Wang had published the early articles by Meng and his colleagues in the September 3 Study Society, and he, too, scrutinized American, Australian, and other foreign press reports, piecing together what he concluded to be a menacing pattern of changes in Japan. In January 1948, Wang was responsible for a series of editorials that, in the words of an offended U.S. consul general in Shanghai, were “increasingly anti-American[,] . . . centering on [the] . . . thesis that China must block ‘America’s attempt to make Japan an Anti-Russian base.’”34 The

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series culminated in two lengthy editorials that discussed the current Japanese economic and political situation, reiterating several of the themes raised by Meng and his associates in the articles published the preceding summer. The first editorial, appearing on January 26, ran under the title, “Japan Is Going to Scramble to its Feet Again.” The piece focused on two main issues. First, it assessed the current status of economic reform in Japan. Wang described the reluctance of Japanese business interests to accept reform, especially the deconcentration of capital. The column further argued that the United States itself was reversing its earlier policy on economic reform because it now designated Japan as the pivotal country in America’s “Marshall Plan” for the Far East. Second, the editorial analyzed in considerable detail the current situation among Japan’s political parties and the apparently inexorable trend toward conservatism, in spite of the leadership of the Socialist Katayama Cabinet at the time.35 The second editorial, appearing two days later, proclaimed Wang’s call for action. Under the heading “Oppose American Plans to Restore the Japanese Economy,” the commentary detailed MacArthur’s Six-year Plan for the restoration of the Japanese economy to levels higher than those of 1930–34. Wang cited United Press reports from Tokyo indicating that over two billion dollars would be spent by the United States to assist Japan in acquiring foodstuffs, raw materials, and other necessities for industrial recovery. Furthermore, the editorial claimed, the expansion of Japanese trade would well exceed the levels necessary for the “self-sufficiency” proclaimed earlier by the United States as the economic goal. The consequent strengthening of Japan would then be a fait accompli at the peace talks. The implications of U.S. policy, Wang argued, were ominous. With Japan’s economy under American domination, the former enemy would become the forty-ninth state, and would be turned into a base for wartime aggression, breathing new life into the specter of the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere,” the vision that had inspired Japanese expansionism during the war. National industry in China and in other Asian countries would be crushed. The result, ironically, would undermine America’s efforts to contain the Soviet Union, because the peoples of Asia would be filled with hatred not toward the USSR, but instead toward the United States for reviving Japan. The entire plan, the article concluded, was not only filled with such strategic contradictions, but it also violated the principles of the Allies in regard to enemy countries. The plan therefore called for vigorous opposition.36 The following day, January 29, a similar editorial protesting U.S. policy in Japan even appeared in the Dongnan ribao (Southeast Daily), an organ


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of the right wing of the Guomindang. Described as “violent” in its antiAmericanism by U.S. Consul General John Cabot,37 the commentary demonstrated just how volatile the Japan question had become among all the political forces in China at the time. On February 13, the Dagong bao published an alarmist article by Meng Xianzhang. Meng opened the piece with the charge that the United States and MacArthur were unilaterally assisting “Japanese fascism” to stand up again, posing a “life and death” threat to the Chinese. The United States was rebuilding Japan, Meng continued, utilizing the same prewar bureaucrats who had launched aggression against China. As evidence, the article noted that even the right-wing Socialist Katayama Cabinet had recently fallen to a new government of entrenched conservative elites. Meng quoted American military leaders to the effect that “Japanese will in the future be wearing U.S. military uniforms, and will be fighting side by side with American soldiers.”38 He called on the United States to rechart its mistaken course, and warned that the only way the Chinese would welcome the eventual recovery of Japan would be if it were accomplished according to the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations. The article closed with a statement of support for Americans who were committed to peace.39 By April, the official Guomindang organ, the Guomin ribao (Nationalist Daily), was finally forced to address the anxiety in China generated by American actions in Japan. Liberal cultural leaders in Shanghai, Beiping, and Tianjin had issued on April 1 a statement to the Nationalist government urging a policy of resistance to “U.S. efforts to build Japanese strength.”40 In its editorial on April 3, 1948, the GMD newspaper wrote, “The U.S. Japan policy, which allows the Japanese militarist cliques and the zaibatsu to continue dominating Japanese political and economic life and which strives to raise the industrial capacity of Japan above the 1930–1934 level by as much as 125%! will result in the revival of Japanese militarism and aggression.”41 On the surface, the official Nationalist government position on U.S. Japan policy appeared to echo the protests of movement activists. But Chiang’s regime, as opposed to other political groups, accepted the American rationale for rebuilding Japan. The editorial maintained, “No doubt the U.S. policy toward Japan is necessitated by the rapid Soviet expansion in Europe and by highly probable Soviet expansion in the Far East.”42 GMD opposition to the United States thus was actually due to the fact that America appeared to be abandoning its earlier postwar commitment to China in favor of Japan: “We have repeatedly pointed out that it is China, which is already engaged in a war against Communism, and not crafty and unscrupulous Japan, that should be chosen as the bulwark

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against Communism in the Far East. We have demonstrated that economic rehabilitation of Asia must begin with peace-loving and democratic China and not Fascist Japan.”43 Of all the critics of U.S. efforts to rebuild Japan, only the Nationalists accepted anti-Communism as an appropriate rationale for determining America’s Asia policy. In spite of this exception, it is significant that many of the other arguments initially propounded by Meng Xianzhang and the September 3 Study Society in opposition to the revival of Japan now appeared months later as editorial opinion in an array of newspapers, including official and unofficial organs of the Guomindang and its factions. Meng’s data and analyses had been compelling, and they had struck a responsive chord among Chinese nationalists who had endured the pain of Japanese invasion and occupation. The increasingly popular backing for the Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan forced politicians of all persuasions to take it seriously. But it is evident that the various political groups who had joined in this chorus of opposition to the American restoration of Japan each had its own political motive for raising its voice.

Assessing Opposition across the Political Spectrum The liberal democratic parties and groups, including the September 3 Study Society, had originally publicized the issue out of fears that Japan would first suffocate China’s national industry and then follow with military domination, tragically repeating the experiences of the previous decade. Later, they recognized that opposition to America’s Japan policy also afforded a means to continue their struggle for democracy and to assert their civil rights under conditions of extreme repression. The Political Science Clique took up the cause for two reasons. First, the most liberal wing of this faction, represented on the editorial board of the Dagong bao by Wang Yunsheng, shared genuine concerns with the democratic forces that Japan might once again come to dominate China and that America might be preparing to launch World War III from Japan, with plans to carry out the bloody conflict on Chinese soil. Second, the clique as a whole recognized that opposing America’s decision to rebuild Japan provided them with a means to appeal to nationalistic sentiments and win back liberal support that had been seriously eroded because of their backing of the government’s actions on certain controversial issues during the civil war.44 The right-wing elements of the Guomindang (including Chiang Kaishek himself) certainly had no reason to further alienate the United States,


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especially in early 1948, when the American Congress was holding debates on a new China aid package. Their opposition to America’s Japan policy, therefore, was to claim for themselves—and deny the Japanese—the mantle of the staunchest anti-Communists in Asia. As such, so these rightists reasoned, it was the Guomindang and its troops, at that very moment serving as the frontline force in actual combat against Communism (in the form of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army), that deserved all the aid and preferential treatment then being offered to Japan. The Communists opposed the U.S. Japan policy in order to claim for themselves a different mantle, that of the true patriotic party of China, thereby drawing to their side broad groups of intermediate forces. At the same time, from their positions in Hong Kong and in the liberated areas under their control, the Communists could criticize the government with impunity for its collaboration with a U.S. government bent on restoring a recently defeated oppressor. Furthermore, from within the Guomindang’s urban strongholds, the CCP could further discredit an “American imperialism” that continued to support the Nationalist government in the civil war. Through the Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan, the party could challenge the anti-Communism upon which America’s Japan policy—and its support of Chiang Kai-shek—was premised. The winter and early spring of 1948, therefore, were marked by a rare political phenomenon: parties and organizations representing the entire Chinese political spectrum had—to one degree or another, and for one reason or another—taken up the banner of opposition to American support of Japan. There was thus created considerable space for political activism, even within an overall context of increasingly violent and desperate government repression. The activism would find wider and bolder expression as the Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan soon leapt from the editorial pages of the newspapers into the streets of China’s urban centers. Students in the thousands responded to the call for protest, joining with a broad array of middle-class and working-class activists in a great social upsurge. The student activism of the movement resounded throughout China on such a scale that, by the time it reached its height between May and July, demonstrations and riots had spread from North to South, erupting in virtually every major city of China. Two factors led to the outbreak of demonstrations in May of 1948. First was the increasing evidence that the United States was firmly committed to the recovery of Japan. Besides MacArthur’s January announcement of a new plan for investment in Japanese reindustrialization, an Army Department recommendation that only Japan’s “primary” war industries be dismantled was also published at that time. “Secondary” war industries,

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originally scheduled for removal to neighboring Asian countries as reparations, were to be left intact in Japan and turned to peaceful uses.45 Still more unsettling to the Chinese was the publication of the “Strike Report” in late March and the “Draper-Johnston Report” in early April. The former contained a policy recommendation authored by Clifford Strike, head of an engineering consortium, who had been sent to Japan in January 1948 to re-evaluate the initial reparations program suggested by Edwin S. Pauley’s commission shortly after the war. The “Strike Report,” in keeping with the current attempts by Washington to encourage Japanese growth, narrowed the original list of “primary” war industries so that even more Japanese productive capacity would remain untouched by reparations claims.46 The “Draper-Johnston Report” included policy initiatives resulting from a February 1948 fact-finding mission to Japan led by Under-Secretary of the Army William Draper and Percy Johnston, chairman of the Chemical Bank and Trust Company. The “DraperJohnston Report” called for “limiting economic reorganization to the minimum necessary” so as to immediately increase Japanese economic production. Production had stagnated, Draper contended, because of uncertainties about reparations and control of Japanese industry. Japanese businesspeople would not invest in plants and equipment if they feared their factories would be seized or removed as payment for war crimes. Draper concluded that “the period of uncertainty caused by this economic reform should be made short and the area of uncertainty lessened as rapidly as possible.”47 In mid-April, the uproar in China surrounding the “Draper Report” compelled the GMD to issue a statement condemning Japanese militarism, but assuring nonetheless that “MacArthur’s policy in Japan [was] generally correct.”48 Members of the Political Science Clique, however, were far less sanguine about the report. “The Draper Plan,” they contended, “is essentially a military plan aimed to reconstruct Japanese war industries and to build Japan into an independent war machine.” They wrote that the plan’s stated concern for the Japanese people’s standard of living was “pure deception.” The fact of the matter, these critics argued, was that Draper’s call for Japan to increase steel production and to reconquer Asian markets was nothing other than encouragement of “the revival of Japanese militaristic nationalism and Fascist aggressionism.”49 U.S. Ambassador to China John Leighton Stuart himself noted that the “very widespread anti-American sentiment crystallizing in protests against our efforts to strengthen Japan . . . is aggravated by . . . the publication of the Draper and similar reports.”50


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In addition to these reports, there was a second reason why the movement against U.S. Japan policy escalated into massive protest demonstrations in May: the actions of the Chinese Communist Party. Although many political forces in China were involved in the movement, the CCP enjoyed two significant advantages over the others. First, the party benefited from widespread credibility as the most consistently critical voice in China opposing America’s postwar Asia policies, including its Japan policy. Second, the party had developed broad organizational networks, weaving together many of the most politically restless strands of the urban population. The fear and anger among these activists over the developments in Japan created an opportunity for the Communists to rally all opposition forces to attack simultaneously the United States, Japan, and Chiang’s regime itself.

M OVEMENT TO O PPOSE U.S. S UPPORT OF J APAN : P HASE II, T HE B ATTLE IN THE S TREETS In March 1948, as growing opposition to U.S. Japan policy continued to find expression in the pages of the Chinese press, Chu Fucheng fell seriously ill. Lying on his death bed, he summoned fellow September 3 Study Society members Meng Xianzhang and Da Yijin to his side, asking them above all else to deepen the struggle against America’s policy to revive Japan. Recalling that day, Da noted in a memoir that an “unseen” organization was already at work, striving to push forward the movement in a way that would fulfill Chu Fucheng’s last wish.51 It was this “unseen” organization, the Chinese Communist Party, that, only several weeks after Chu’s death, would raise the stakes in the struggle, shifting the battlefront from the editorial columns of newspapers to the lecture halls and streets of cities throughout the country, guiding tens of thousands of Chinese from various social strata in a massive urban upsurge against “American imperialism,” “Japanese fascism,” and “Guomindang dictatorship.” As noted earlier, the CCP had been among the first in China to publicly accuse the United States of reviving Japanese aggression. The analyses of Japan offered by the liberals of the September 3 Study Society who initiated the movement dovetailed nicely with the CCP’s own analysis, and the Communist press joined in the protests marking the movement’s first phase. But as these protests slowly gained momentum as a battle in the press, the CCP was concentrating its energies on more active forms of struggle, attempting to build on the successes of the anti-hunger, anti–civil

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war student protests of the previous spring to broaden what Mao Zedong had then declared to be the “second front” in the civil war. This task was by no means an easy one for CCP members. After the spring protests of 1947, many leaders singled out by the government had either been arrested or had been forced to flee to the safety of the Communists’ liberated areas. As the year went on, repression only further intensified. Hence, on many campuses, student organizations had to be rebuilt with new leaders and new activist recruits. It is remarkable that under these conditions, the party was in a position, by the spring of 1948, to provide leadership to a movement even more broadly based than that of the previous year. As the spring semester commenced, the higher levels of the party responsible for student work in Shanghai came to an important decision. Among all the issues raised by the current domestic and international situation, they determined, one in particular stood out: America’s policy to revive Japan. The CCP recognized that over the past months, U.S. Japan policy had become a broad political concern throughout China. With proper guidance, this issue promised to rally even larger numbers in a progressive movement. Party branches at campuses throughout China in March of 1948 received the same message: concentrate on building the Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan.

Movement Activism Unfolds Universities in Shanghai immediately took up the task. The General Party Branch at Jiaotong University initially responded to the directive by launching an intensive educational program on the issue of America’s Japan policy. Students plastered wall posters across campus and distributed reams of literature, quickly generating a high level of interest in current developments in Japan.52 Similar activities took place on other campuses. The St. John’s University General Party Branch enthusiastically launched a campaign against America’s Asia policy, shouldering a special responsibility to build a strong protest at this American-sponsored institution. The party worked through various legal student organizations to spread among all the students on campus a basic understanding of the issues involved in the movement.53 At Fudan University, the campus General Branch met with the lower branches to work out detailed plans for building the movement.54 Students held a forum in late March on “Japan in Revival,” with Japan expert Li Chunqing as guest speaker. Li had been active in the first phase


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of the movement, adding his name to a list of fifty signatories to a December 28 article drafted by September 3 Study Society activists calling for immediate peace talks.55 On April 1, Fudan students gathered for a “Patriotic Song Night” to oppose the revival of Japan. On April 16, the Department of History and Geography invited Meng Xianzhang to give a lecture. Meng warned that without opposing U.S. support of Japan, there would soon be people hoisting the flag of the rising sun on Chinese territory.56 These kinds of educational efforts soon led to public demonstrations. On May 2, the Foreign Relations Department at Fudan University held a program in protest of U.S. Japan policy entitled “Remembering May 4.” The next night, representatives from all the colleges in Shanghai met at Jiaotong University to discuss unified plans for the movement. Student groups performed songs, dances, and skits opposing the revival of Japan, and the gathering ended with a torchlight procession. On the evening of May 4, the twenty-ninth anniversary of the 1919 demonstration against Japanese imperialism, some 15,000 people from more than 120 colleges, high schools, and middle schools gathered on the Jiaotong campus for a bonfire rally on the athletic field. Several wellknown democratic personages made speeches at the rally. The main address was delivered by Meng Xianzhang. Besides speeches, there were various performances and skits. Effigies of Chiang Kai-shek, of “U.S. imperialists,” and of Japanese militarists had been brought to the bonfire. At the height of the activities, students threw the effigies into the flames. The gathering passed a resolution to form a city-wide organization to push forward the movement with coordinated actions.57 The following Sunday, May 9, thousands of young people attending the National Athletic Meet surprised the foreign press corps covering the event by joining in singing an “anti-American Japan aid song,” an action that the China Post noted “showed teamwork and training, and attracted much attention.”58 Embarrassed by these public demonstrations, the government retaliated. Five days later, two women and three men who were recent graduates of Jiaotong were arrested with great fanfare “on suspicion of being involved in a Communist-inspired plot.”59 At several Shanghai campuses, student agents of the government broke up meetings, smashed equipment, and beat student activists.60 Demonstrations and public meetings continued in Shanghai and elsewhere despite government repression. St. John’s University students intensified their work by dividing the organizing tasks among several student organizations. The Student Self-Government Association (SSGA) sponsored a forum and lecture by Meng Xianzhang. The Drama Club put

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on short plays, one entitled “Yuan Shikai,” which, by historical allegory, criticized those contemporary leaders in China who were selling out the country to Japan, just as Yuan had when he capitulated to many of the infamous “Twenty-one Demands” in 1915. Other students put together a cartoon exhibit called “The Revival of Japanese Fascism.” The campus newspaper, The St. John’s News, ran a series of articles on Japan. The SSGA sponsored a second forum, chaired by St. John’s University President Chu Yuqing and Professor Lin Muguang, focusing discussion on such questions as “Why does the United States support Japan?” “What will be the likely result of the restoration of Japan by U.S. imperialism?” and “What are the responsibilities of students at this time as compared to May 4, 1919, and December 9, 1935?”61 On May 22, St. John’s hosted another rally of fifteen thousand, this one to kick off the city-wide “One Hundred Thousand Signature Petition” drive, protesting U.S. revival of Japan. Faculty and administrators added their names to the one thousand signatures collected on campus.62 St. John’s students also solicited the support of such groups as the AllChina Woodcut Society and the World of Knowledge Society to cosponsor a “national exhibition” on Chinese suffering at the hands of Japan. The exhibition displayed woodcuts, cartoons, photos, articles, and artifacts from the war (including a Japanese soldier’s steel helmet, a military uniform, and a bayonet). Above the exhibition was strung a huge banner reading, “The Eight-Year War of Resistance: Remembrances of the Chinese People’s Blood and Tears.” Another banner read, “Three Years after this Costly Victory, the United States Fosters the Revival of Japanese Fascism.” During the originally scheduled three days of the exhibition, more than two thousand people attended—workers, shopkeepers, and schoolteachers and their students. In response to requests from people both inside and outside the university, the exhibit was kept open three more days.63 On May 12 at Fudan University, the Economics Research Society sponsored a “Forum on the Japan Question,” attended by an overflow crowd. The following day, students put up a large poster display covered with newspaper clippings exposing U.S. support for reviving Japan. On May 30—the anniversary of the powerful anti-Japanese May 30 Movement of 1925—four hundred Fudan students fanned out into neighborhoods around the campus distributing information on America’s policy in Japan. Beginning June 1, Fudan students also held an “Oppose U.S. Support of Japan Week,” including Remembrance Day (recounting Japanese atrocities in China), Correspondence Day (writing to friends and relatives about U.S. support for Japan and Chiang’s complicity in the policy), Singing


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Figure 5-A 15,000 demonstrators rallied on May 22, 1948, on the Jiaotong University campus in Shanghai to oppose U.S. support for the rebuilding of Japan. The rally launched a petition drive to collect 100,000 signatures in protest of America’s Japan policy.

Day (learning songs of resistance to Japan), and Exhibition Day (displaying more than thirty large murals on Japanese aggression).64 Throughout Shanghai, activism was on the rise. Paralleling the expansion of the movement in Shanghai was the spread of protest in other cities throughout the country. In mid-May, the CCPled North China Student Association, which coordinated student activism in Beiping and Tianjin, decided to throw its support behind the movement. Activities were initiated immediately, with students in Beiping organizing their own “Oppose American Support of Japan Week.” Students invited professors to speak at a forum on Japan. They devised a “public opinion examination” on the Japan question.65 Fifteen hundred Beiping protesters attended an “Oppose U.S. Support of Japan May 30 Memorial Meeting.” The anniversary date of the 1925 “May 30 Movement” was marked by demonstrations in other parts of China as well, among the largest of which was the protest march of three thousand in the coastal city of Xiamen (Amoy).66

America Responds to Anti-Americanism The protests against America’s Japan policy were troubling to U.S. officials on the scene. The very liberals whom Marshall had identified as the

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“salvation of the situation” in China were vociferously engaging in antiAmerican protests. As the movement escalated, the embassy would cling to the belief that the Chinese simply misunderstood the United States’ policy toward Japan.67 But two developments exhausted the patience of American officials, precipitating an angry response from high-ranking embassy personnel. The first development was the growing activism at American-supported St. John’s University. On April 30, Consul General John Cabot delivered a speech at the campus to refute claims that the United States was rearming Japan and that American policy toward Japan was a menace to China. Cabot contended that Japan could not be left to starve, nor could it be pauperized and left dependent on constant infusions of U.S. aid that would not be tolerated by the American taxpayer. The only remaining option was to rehabilitate Japan to make it self-sustaining. “There are greater dangers in the Far East,” Cabot declared, “than a resurgent Japan.” In only thinly veiled terms, the consul general expressed American fears of Communist domination of Japan as well as China as follows: “We feel our purpose would not . . . be advanced if there were a ruined and desperate nation [Japan] in this area. We believe that this might merely play into the hands of an aggressive ideology which has brought such woe and devastation by seeking to dominate China.”68 Cabot thus downplayed the Japanese threat and laid the responsibility for China’s difficulties at the feet of an “aggressive ideology”—communism—at the very moment that a tumultuous and faction-ridden session of the Guomindang’s National Assembly was adjourning. The tens of thousands of Chinese students, professors, and businesspeople who opposed the civil war, who shared in the “all but universal dissatisfaction with the present government” (Stuart’s own words),69 and who genuinely feared the consequences for China of a revitalized Japan were outraged by Cabot’s remarks. Of all the developments in the movement to date, however, undoubtedly the most galling to Ambassador Stuart was a telegram of June 1, addressed to Truman and Marshall, that was signed by 338 presidents and professors of Chinese colleges and universities opposing the U.S. policy in Japan. The telegram was the final straw in a series of events “so violent and irrational” in Stuart’s view that he had to respond. Repeating his action of February 20, the ambassador again on June 4 issued a personal statement in defense of American policy. Stuart’s close association with academic circles (he had served as president of Yenching University in Beiping before becoming ambassador) caused him anguish over the fact that “the core of anti-American agitation on the question of Japan [was] coming from Chinese student groups.”70


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The statement’s initial tone of disappointment, however, quickly turned to one of chastisement. Stuart implied that the China Aid Program, recently passed through the U.S. Congress, might be withdrawn as the American people “may well wonder when these [aid] efforts are greeted by unreasonable and irresponsible attacks on American policy.”71 The ambassador defied “anyone to produce a single shred of evidence that any part of Japanese military power is being restored” or that the United States had any intentions to do so. He warned participants in the protests that they “must be prepared to face the consequences of their actions.”72 Stuart continued by urging the students and intellectuals to apply their “best and honest efforts” to meet China’s needs and not “lend themselves to evil purposes.” Although the ambassador did not go as far as Cabot had in blaming China’s desperate situation on an “aggressive ideology,” the “evil purposes” to which Stuart referred were undoubtedly those of the Communist Party. He revealed his anti-Communism in his comments on Japan as follows: “Your [i.e., Chinese] interests in Japan and those of my country are identical,” Stuart asserted. “We do not want a Communist Japan, and our surest method of preventing such a calamity is to enable the Japanese people to earn their own living.”73 The protests were proving, however, that at the heart of Chinese concerns were fears of a rebirth of Japanese militarism and economic domination of China, not fears of Japanese Communism. Stuart’s comments were wide of the mark, and his threats were ominous. The “harsh words” that he admitted he had “felt compelled to speak” were greeted by such vehement denunciations throughout China that on June 30, the ambassador candidly reported to Secretary Marshall, “The attacks on me because of my statement regarding American policy in Japan have been very widespread and violent.”74 Indeed, the attempts by both Cabot and Stuart to cool the fires of protest served only to fan the flames still hotter.

The Protests Spread and Intensify The press angrily responded to Stuart’s statement the following day. Hong Kong’s Huashang bao editorialized that as a follow-up to “Cabot’s bombastic speech,” Stuart not only defended American policy in Japan, but also “uttered a threat against Chinese students.” Such an “arrogant and impudent” attitude on the part of “the envoy of U.S. imperialists” would “only help to make the Movement grow stronger.” The editorial concluded, “The U.S. imperialists themselves, not our patriotic students, will have to ‘face the consequences.’ Let us protest against Stuart’s insult to us

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with action!”75 Action did follow. As opposed to previous years when protests died down by early June, the actions of 1948 continued well into the summer. The response in Beiping to Stuart’s statement was immediate. By June 6, a protest letter had been drafted and signed by 291 academics, including such well-known liberal figures as sociologist Fei Xiaotong, economist Chu Anping, and novelist Ba Jin. Because Stuart was such a close friend of many scholars in Beiping, the CCP’s Yenching University General Party Branch decided to circulate two protest statements, one with a conciliatory tone and one with a confrontational tone. The slogan advanced to win over these friends of Stuart was, “I love my teacher, but still more I love truth.” The mild letter to Stuart encouraged him to resign his ambassadorial post and come back to his school duties. The angry letter opposed both Stuart’s statement and the United States’ Japan policy. Circulating the two letters unified sentiment at the university, and as a result, the movement rapidly expanded.76 The activism that had been building in Shanghai was scheduled to culminate in a city-wide demonstration planned for June 5. This demonstration took on new significance in the wake of Stuart’s statement. Already the political tensions surrounding this demonstration had been heightened by the June 3 actions of Shanghai Mayor Wu Guozhen. On that evening, the Jiaotong University Student Self-Government Association had hosted, under CCP guidance,77 an all-Shanghai “Forum on the Japan Question.” In addition to prominent figures such as Meng Xianzhang and a number of famous professors, Mayor Wu, a high-profile Guomindang leader, also accepted an invitation to speak. Chinese and foreign reporters were among those in the packed gymnasium as Mayor Wu stepped to the podium. Wu’s remarks began with a reminder that the United States was sending economic aid and rice to China, and concluded with the claim that it was the USSR that actually had designs on the homeland. The mayor called on those present to direct their protests against the Soviet Union, not the United States. He departed the hall amid a chorus of boos and hisses. The speakers who followed denounced the mayor and reissued the call for the June 5 demonstration.78 But Mayor Wu was not finished. The next day he issued threats to school officials whose students planned to leave their campuses for the demonstration, and on the morning of June 5, he ordered troops in armored vehicles with machine guns mounted on top to surround all the public universities. Unable to break the cordon, students at these schools were forced to hold their demonstrations on campus.79

Figure 5-B Armored vehicles, such as this one, surrounded Chinese universities to prevent students from joining the June 5 city-wide protests.

Figure 5-C With most universities facing an armed clampdown, middle-school students played a crucial role in the June 5 demonstration. Fifty-five were arrested that day.

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Figure 5-D Mounted government police rode into the crowd to break up the demonstration.

Without these college students, the vast majority of the more than five thousand students who gathered at the downtown assembly point were high-school and middle-school students. In attempting to break up this demonstration, police rode horses into the crowd, singling out those holding banners and leading the chants. They beat the students and arrested fifty-five, many of them young boys and girls.80 Nevertheless, under the leadership of students from St. John’s University, a private institution that was spared the encirclement, the marchers closed ranks and paraded down Nanjing Road. The rally ended with the singing of patriotic songs.81 Unable to completely quash the city-wide demonstration, Mayor Wu blasted the student leaders of the movement, especially those from Jiaotong University. He leveled serious charges against them, accusing them of following the “directions” of “professional students” from the outside.82 The official Guomindang newspaper, Zhongyang ribao (The Central Daily), minced no words in labeling the students “Communist bandit elements.”83 Such epithets embodied more than rhetoric: Communists were subject to arrest and imprisonment according to the provisions of the Anti-Communist Mobilization Decree of 1947.


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The students responded to the GMD threat by calling for a public “arbitration hearing” to render judgment on their actions in opposition to America’s Japan policy. The Shanghai liberal community eagerly accepted invitations to participate in the hearing. On the evening of June 26, an array of distinguished political activists helped fill the Jiaotong gymnasium for the event.84 The list of notables included, among others, Xu Guangping, who was editor of Minzhu (The Democratic Weekly), chair of the Shanghai Women’s Fellowship Society, and widow of the famous writer Lu Xun; Shi Liang, a lawyer, women’s rights activist, and the only woman among the so-called “Seven Gentlemen” (“Qi junzi”) who had been arrested by the Guomindang in late 1936 for their anti-Japanese activism; Ma Yinchu, highly regarded professor of economics; and Meng Xianzhang, whose article of July 1947 fired the opening salvo of the movement. Even Guomindang legislator Wan Meizi attended in support of the students.85 More than two thousand activists packed the gymnasium. Addressing the crowd, the liberals reiterated that the movement’s purpose was to oppose the strengthening of Japanese militarism. They denied, as they had to, that the CCP was “directing” this patriotic upsurge. They questioned the legality of the mayor’s actions, and they compared his tactics—launching a “war of nerves”—to those of the Nazis. Shi Liang boldly offered to provide legal defense for the students, and if the students were arrested, she promised to go to jail with them. Reinvigorated by the encouragement of these prestigious leaders, the students pledged that they would strike back at anyone who attacked the movement.86 This militant spirit characterized the movement throughout China during June 1948. In Beiping, Student Self-Government Associations at Yenching and other universities visited professors, conducted public opinion polls, held meetings and rallies, and even hosted dinners to build opposition to America’s efforts in Japan. The North China Students Association called a two-day strike for June 9–10, culminating in a city-wide demonstration with three routes converging in the busy Wangfujing shopping district for a rally. Among the slogans for the demonstrations were “Oppose U.S. support of Japan!” “Oppose U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs!” and “Protect the development of national trade and commerce!” Leaflets distributed during the march raised a total of twenty-one slogans and demands—reminiscent of the Twenty-one Demands imposed on China by Japan in 1915—protesting a wide range of actions in regard to Japan.87 Facing the same sort of police action that students in Shanghai

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had encountered four days earlier, the Beiping protesters managed finally to rally five thousand strong after breaking through campus blockades.88 The movement continued in Beiping as organizers encouraged intellectuals to refuse American “relief” in the form of food rations, a true sacrifice during these times of want. But as the 110 professors and staff at Tsinghua University who joined the movement stated, “In order to demonstrate the dignity and moral integrity of the Chinese people, we hereby renounce these material goods that represent our selling our souls.”89 The largest demonstration in all of China during June was held in the Southwestern city of Kunming. Protesters numbering between ten thousand and fifteen thousand raised such slogans as “Down with U.S. imperialism!” “Down with Japanese Fascism!” and “Long Live the Chinese!” American consular officials reported by telegram, “Numerous signs and posters displayed depicting sufferings Chinese endured during the war years because of Japan.”90 In addition to these actions led by students and professors, there were important protests lodged by other social groups. Ten magazine editors signed their own letter of protest, as did 30 authors of children’s books, 147 writers and artists, and 476 individuals engaged in the shipping business.91 Businesspeople and trade unionists in Hong Kong (where unemployment had shot up to 25 percent after the Occupation reopened Japan to private trade) together voiced their protest of the reindustrialization of Japan.92 Such activism by merchants and industrialists was particularly significant. Several business organizations called for a boycott of Japanese goods. Centered among Chinese manufacturers in Singapore and Hong Kong, the boycott idea won the support of the Shanghai textile industry, as well. The Chinese Manufacturers Association first called for a restriction of Japanese imports. Local businesspeople responded favorably, and within days, the Nanyang Association of Economists, a group of business intellectuals in Hong Kong, issued a manifesto protesting the dumping of Japanese goods onto Far Eastern markets. The document declared that America’s unilateral restoration of Japanese trade threatened not only China’s commerce, but its peace and security, as well. The manifesto noted that the American rationale for its commitment to rebuilding Japan (i.e., that the policy was necessary to relieve food shortages in Japan) rang hollow in the ears of those starving throughout the rest of Asia.93 The Chinese Communist Party enthusiastically supported the boycott idea, building important bridges between itself and the “national bourgeoisie” during the course of the movement.94 Women’s organizations also joined the protests against America’s support of Japan. In late June, a statement signed by 335 women in Shanghai


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was made public.95 The signatories included Xu Guangping and Shi Liang, two prominent figures at the “arbitration hearing.” The names on the protest document included women who identified themselves as professors, teachers, government functionaries, bankers, businesswomen, Christians, lawyers, doctors, news reporters, writers, actresses, and housewives—all of whom “unanimously oppose[d] U.S. policy to support Japan.” The women’s protest outlined perceived American violations of the Potsdam Declaration, as had most other such statements. But this statement was unique in its emphasis on what the Japanese invasion had done to women. Women had been subject to rape and dismemberment. Their homes had been destroyed and families torn apart. The signatories asserted that they were not narrow in their outlook and that they supported the Japanese being able to live. But what the United States was doing was more: it was building up Japanese imperialism. They condemned Stuart’s statement for its threats and for its defense of the interests of “the Wall Street clique.” The document firmly supported the “students, male and female, who were raising their arms to lead” the movement.96 As all these activities indicate, the Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan touched virtually every sector of urban Chinese society.

T HE M OVEMENT WANES In the face of overwhelming public support for the movement, the Nationalist government adopted a new strategy to end the protests. It eased its direct attacks on the various movement activities and at the same time required public universities to end the semester early and send students home. That accomplished, the authorities in August launched another campaign to arrest student leaders. Many fled to the Communists’ liberated areas, but a few were captured and some put to death. For these and other reasons related to the political situation in China, the movement waned in July, one year after its inception.97 The struggle obviously failed to achieve its goal of convincing the United States to abandon its policy of rebuilding Japan. But the Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan nevertheless reverberated with political significance. It demonstrated once again that America’s increasing tendency to establish policy on the basis of straightforward anti-Communism undercut any prospects of building up the liberals to prevent the “loss of China.” As far as China was concerned, America’s international initiative to combat Communism in Asia thus met a similar fate as that of Marshall’s policy for the country’s domestic reform. The combined result was a stag-

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gering blow to the United States in the battle for the middle forces in China98—and, simultaneously, a victory for the Communists. In short, American anti-Communism aided the Communist cause. By August 1948, the loss of liberal support and the military collapse of the Nationalist Army would force Washington to reassess its China policy. America would conclude during October that rather than pursue a “positive” policy of increased aid or direct support for either Chiang Kai-shek or the liberal reformers, the prudent response would be simply to “wait for the dust to settle.”99

4

C

CLEARING

H A P T E R

6

A M E R I C A’ S L O S S : T H E B AT T L E F I E L D —A N D P A R T I N G S H O T S , 1948–49

The prevailing mood is one of despair and resignation to what is regarded as the inevitable victory of Communism. Furthermore, there is a growing belief that Communism would be a not unattractive alternative to the present ineffective regime, particularly since such a change would bring with it an end to civil war. —Lewis Clark Minister-Counselor, US Embassy in China June 12, 1948

B

y the spring of 1948, the Chinese Communist Party was well on it way to victory in the battle with the United States and the Nationalists for the allegiance of the middle forces. A vast majority of these people had come to reject the reactionary leadership of the GMD—namely, Chiang Kaishek, the CC Clique, and the Whampoa Military Clique—and now saw the CCP as a viable alternative. To be sure, there remained some who tried to maintain their middle ground, and even a few who threw in their lot with the Nationalists.1 But many more liberals, including prominent leaders of China’s democratic parties and organizations, had already become radicalized and had fervently joined the Communist revolutionary cause. Within this political milieu of broad opposition to the Chiang regime and widespread support for a coalition government, the Communists issued on May Day an invitation to the democratic forces to join in launching concrete measures toward the creation of a democratic “people’s republic”

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to facilitate the realization of their shared vision: the building of a “new China.”

T HE C OMMUNISTS ’ M AY 1st A PPEAL On May 1, 1948—International Workers’ Day—the Chinese Communist Party published twenty-three slogans that both summed up the experiences of the recent revolutionary struggle and pointed to a new way forward. The first two slogans celebrated the successes of the People’s Liberation Army and the determination of the revolutionary forces to fight through to Nanjing to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek. The next several slogans, however, in addition to speaking to the laboring classes, as would be expected of a May Day document, spoke directly to the middle forces. Slogan three celebrated the “conscious and unprecedented maturity of the laboring classes and all the oppressed people,” highlighting the “progress of the struggle for freedom being waged by young people and intellectuals throughout the country.” The fourth slogan called on the laboring people to “join in common cause with the intellectuals, private capitalists, the various democratic parties and groups, social dignitaries and other patriots, to consolidate and broaden the united front against imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism in the struggle to bring down Chiang Kai-shek and build a new China.”2 Slogan five issued the following call to action: “Every democratic party and group, every people’s organization and social dignitary should [join together to] promptly convene a [new] Political Consultative Conference [PPC] to discuss and then convoke a people’s representative congress that will in turn establish a democratic coalition government.”3 Within days, representatives of eight different democratic parties and groups, along with one leading independent democrat, transmitted a joint cable to Mao, expressing their support for the call. “Not only does the call closely conform to the demands of the people at the present time,” they wrote, “but it also comports to our basic purpose as well.”4 Enthusiastically taking up the tasks outlined by the May Day proposal, the Democratic League published in early June its own ideas for preparatory work for the new PCC. Among the activities the League called for were (1) intensifying efforts to overthrow the Nanjing government; (2) signing a joint statement to the United Nations from all the democratic parties, announcing their participation in the new Political Consultative Conference and denouncing America’s crimes in interfering in China’s internal affairs; (3) demanding of Chiang’s armed forces that they lay

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down their weapons, stop the civil war, and establish genuine peace; (4) mobilizing industrialists and merchants to fight against the system of imports and exports that concentrated power in the hands of the bureaucrat capitalists; (5) urging peasants in the White regions to refuse to supply the government with grain, purchases, and soldiers so as to shorten the civil war; and (6) calling upon public servants, scholars, students and youth, and laboring people to launch a “We demand food! We demand freedom!” campaign. All these actions, the League maintained, would advance the struggle for a “people’s democratic new China.”5 These proposals demonstrated how closely the Democratic League now identified with the Communist-led revolutionary forces. In response to this friendly collaboration between the CCP and the democratic forces, the United States found itself woefully bereft of options. Indeed, by mid-1948, there was little but a flickering prospect of realizing Marshall’s plan for a liberal-led government. A New York Times reporter estimated on June 20, 1948—near the peak of the Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan—that 70 percent of the university students in Beiping “supported” the Communist Party, up some 20 percent from the previous year.6 By July 30, U.S. consular officials would conclude that the reform of the National government by liberal forces was “scarcely to be hoped for.”7

G RASPING AT S TRAWS AND WAITING FOR THE D UST TO S ETTLE : U.S. P OLICY, L ATE 1948–49 As the Nationalist cause quickly unraveled in the last half of 1948, the United States adopted a new “wait-and-see” policy toward China.8 Li Zongren had not fulfilled his promise as a reformer. By June 30, a mere two months after his stunning election as vice president of the Nationalist government had aroused such optimism among U.S. observers, a consular report was describing Li as like “a bright young boy who has slipped unobserved by his parents into the company of his elders, is surprised to find himself there, and is at a loss to know what to do.”9 Yet this patronizing description merely masked America’s own ambivalence toward Li, which was a paralyzing mixture of distrust, on the one hand, of Li’s willingness to collaborate with the CCP, combined with the hope, on the other hand, that he might be the catalyst for reform of the Nationalist government—within the context, of course, of continued support for the discredited and despised Chiang leadership. The U.S.-imposed parameters for political action would have made it difficult for any potential reformer

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“to know what to do.” Indeed, even the most cursory reading of State Department documents on China at the time makes it abundantly clear that Washington itself was in a deep quandary over “what to do.”

P OLITICAL R EFORM ? L I J ISHEN AND THE G UOMINDANG R EVOLUTIONARY C OMMITTEE With interest in Li Zongren fading, the United States spent the rest of the summer of 1948 evaluating the strength and utility of another GMD military leader, Marshal Li Jishen, as a candidate for American support. It will be remembered that Li Jishen had been mentioned as a prominent participant in the “Third Party” conspiracy that had surfaced in mid-1947. But as early as the autumn of 1946, Marshal Li had already established his credentials as a reformer by undertaking a determined effort to prevent Chiang Kai-shek from launching his full-scale military offensive to exterminate the Communists. Acting as head of an organization known as the Guomindang Association for the Promotion of Democracy (Guomindang minzhu cujinhui), the marshal, on three separate occasions that September, had wired Chiang at his mountain retreat of Lushan, trying to convince the Generalissimo to call off the expansion of the civil war and abide by the agreements of the Political Consultative Conference, in particular the agreement to establish a coalition government.10 Chiang’s angry reply was to turn against the marshal and his organization, forcing them to flee to Hong Kong to avoid persecution.11 From the relative safety of the British colony, however, Li Jishen continued to speak out. Pointing to the civil war as the source of both the political and the economic crises facing China, the marshal directly indicted Chiang Kai-shek as the person responsible for the country’s plight—and called for change. In March 1947, Marshal Li publicly outlined his proposals in his “Seven-Point Programme,” in which he raised these key demands: first, that the Nationalist government abandon its commitment to unifying the country by force of arms and that both sides agree to an immediate cease-fire; second, that the Political Consultative Conference be reconvened, that the government be reorganized at both the central and local levels, and that a coalition government be established; and third, that a foreign policy be adopted that preserved China’s sovereignty, rejected all unequal treaties, and guaranteed China’s independence.12 The Seven-Point Programme circulated broadly and was warmly received by China’s democratic middle forces.13 As might be expected, however, the reaction of the Nationalist Party’s central leadership was


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anything but warm: at an emergency meeting convened in May 1947, they declared Li Jishen a persona non grata and coldly expelled him from the party ranks.14 The expulsion, however, failed to curtail Marshal Li’s organizing efforts. Throughout the rest of the year, he worked to bring together various groupings of democratic forces within the Nationalist Party, and by the end of October, he had succeeded in gathering over 110 delegates in Hong Kong to discuss the basis of unity for a new party organization. The new organization’s membership was comprised of Nationalist Party activists who vowed to carry on the GMD’s original revolutionary traditions. Joining Li Jishen was He Xiangning, a former member of the Guomindang Central Committee who had distinguished herself as an organizer in the feminist upsurge of the 1920s15 and had been named head of the party’s Women’s Bureau in 1924. Her husband, Liao Zhongkai, had been Sun Yat-sen’s closest associate in the Nationalist Party and, with He at his side, Liao had assumed the primary responsibilities for party activities upon Sun’s death in 1925. Later that year, Liao, as a leading figure of the left-wing Guomindang, was killed by party rightists, but He Xiangning persevered within the Nationalist Party as the standard bearer for both Sun and Liao’s left-leaning legacy. Although she had to flee to Europe after Chiang Kai-shek launched his coup in 1927, she returned to China in response to the Japanese invasion of the Northeast in 1931 and worked side by side with Sun Yat-sen’s widow, Song Qingling, in attempts to create a government of national resistance to Japanese aggression. After the Japanese invasion of 1937, He and Song moved to Hong Kong where they established the China Preservation Society to raise funds and gather medical supplies from foreign sources to support the Chinese resistance forces.16 After the Japanese seized Hong Kong during their December 1941 offensive, He moved to Guilin in China’s interior to continue her work. When the war ended, she launched efforts to democratize the Guomindang, and by 1947 she had established a close collaboration with Li Jishen. It was no surprise, therefore, that Li and He would invite Song Qingling to join in their organizational activities. Song not only drew widespread respect as Sun’s widow, but she was also a distinguished political figure in her own right. Like He Xiangning, Song had been elected to the Guomindang’s Central Committee in 1926, forced into exile in Russia and Germany after Chiang unleashed the “white terror” in 1927, and compelled by her convictions to return to China in 1931 to intensify her efforts to remold the Nationalist Party as a force for revolution. Song

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stood in the forefront of the powerful civil rights and Japanese resistance movements that pressured Chiang throughout the 1930s, and during World War II, she and He organized the procurement of international aid for China from their base in Hong Kong. Still working on progressive issues in Shanghai after the war, Song met in secret with Li Jishen as he prepared for the Hong Kong conference of Guomindang democrats. Although Song respectfully declined Li’s invitation to attend the Hong Kong convention—her obligations in Shanghai precluded her participation—she nevertheless lent her support to the new organization and was ultimately named its honorary chairperson.17 While the preparatory work led by Li Jishen, He Xiangning, and other notable democratic Nationalists proceeded in Hong Kong throughout November and December of 1947, another leading Nationalist Party figure who would join Li’s organization, General Feng Yuxiang, was actively carrying out democratic work of his own in the United States. Feng, a long-time military leader in the Guomindang, had led a colorful and distinguished career.18 Having been initiated into military life during the final years of the Qing dynasty, Feng created a power base in Northern China and was often referred to as one of the “Northern warlords.” In 1914, he converted to Methodism and brought a kind of Christian socialism to his well-disciplined troops. Said to have baptized his soldiers with a fire hose, Feng became known in the West as the “Christian General.” Feng established an on-again, off-again relationship with Chiang Kai-shek, joining the Generalissimo to unify China during the post-1927 phase of the Northern Expedition, and later rebelling against Chiang for his failure to resist the Japanese during the early 1930s. When Chiang finally chose to resist after the full-scale invasion of 1937, Feng once again lent his forces to the Nationalist cause.19 In the aftermath of World War II, Feng Yuxiang quickly grew discouraged by Chiang’s dictatorial rule and the outbreak of civil war. It was Feng’s persistent and charismatic opposition to Chiang that would lead in mid-1947 to his being included as the potential military leader of the Nationalists’ breakaway “Third Party” conspiracy. One year earlier, Feng had found himself impeded by government censors in his efforts to speak out in China, so he requested and was granted permission by Chiang in September 1946 to go to the United States on the pretext of studying systems of water control. Able now to express himself, Feng, along with his wife Li Dequan, herself a long-time activist in China’s feminist and democratic movements,20 soon became a voice within the American political arena challenging the pro-Chiang “China Lobby” fostered by Henry and Claire Boothe Luce.


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Feng’s message was simple and straightforward: the Chiang dictatorship was bankrupt; without U.S. aid, it would fall; with U.S. aid, it would go on—and the killing of Chinese people would go on. Feng took advantage of every opportunity to publish opinion pieces, to speak on college campuses and in public forums, to call press conferences—all to denounce American economic and military aid to Chiang. Feng even appeared before Congress and met with State Department officials to plead his cause.21 His efforts punctured the illusions many Americans held about Chiang Kai-shek as the great leader of “Free China,” an image that Luce had worked so hard to cultivate. In practical terms, his work resulted in a considerably smaller aid package to China in 1948 than had first been proposed.22 In the midst of all these activities, Feng welcomed the news from Hong Kong that a new organization of Nationalist Party members dedicated to Chinese democracy was being formed. With the endorsement of Song Qingling, and now Feng Yuxiang and Li Dequan, and with the active leadership of Li Jishen, He Xiangning, and other luminaries,23 the preparatory work yielded impressive results, culminating in the January 1, 1948, declaration of the founding of the Chinese Nationalist Party Revolutionary Committee (usually known as the Guomindang Revolutionary Committee, or GMDRC). The primary goals of the GMDRC were to revive the spirit of the Nationalist Party by putting into practice the genuine Three People’s Principles of Sun Yat-sen: democracy, nationalism, and people’s livelihood. The convention agreed that the immediate task facing Chinese democrats was “to overthrow the reactionary dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek, which opposed democracy, destroyed peace, and sold out the country.” The Revolutionary Committee charged Chiang with having gathered under his leadership “all the reactionary elements of Chinese society, including the big compradors, big landlords, bureaucrats, warlords, local tyrants, evil gentry, and gangsters.” The upshot, the GMDRC concluded, was that the Generalissimo and his regime now stood as the “public enemy of the country’s 400 million people.”24 Such antipathy for Chiang and his government left little doubt that four months later, when Chiang convened the second National Assembly in Nanjing, Li Jishen and the GMDRC would voice their opposition. In disavowing the legitimacy of the assembly, they repudiated the presidential and vice presidential elections as well, refusing to acknowledge the outcomes. Yet while Marshal Li rejected Chiang and the party machine, there was talk that he nevertheless continued to maintain ties with newly elected Vice President Li Zongren and with yet another important GMD general, Fu Zuoyi—both of whom were rumored to be about to break from the Generalissimo. There were even reports that Chiang’s strong opposition

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to Li Zongren’s bid for the vice presidency was due to the Generalissimo’s knowledge of his relationship with Marshal Li and the GMD Revolutionary Committee.25 As the United States struggled to keep its interests in China afloat during the summer of 1948, it briefly turned its attention to Li Jishen and his organization. America was grasping at straws in the wake of its disappointment with Li Zongren and his potential as a reformer. Marshal Li initially attracted American interest because he and the GMDRC were avowed reformers of the Nationalist Party who appeared to possess some of the anti-Communist credentials the United States found appealing: Li himself had led the bloody purge of CCP activists in Guangzhou (Canton) in coordination with Chiang’s coup of April 1927 that drove Communists out of the Nationalist Party and resulted in the Generalissimo’s rise to preeminence.26 Now, two decades later, in spite of his break with Chiang, Li still maintained that the Guomindang was the leading political party in the Chinese Revolution and that Sun Yat-sen’s Three People’s Principles remained “the only salvation for China.”27 By the late spring of 1948, Marshal Li seemed to be gathering strength among leading political and military figures long associated with the Nationalist Party. An active conspiracy was reported afoot that would soon result in Chiang’s ouster by the marshal’s dissident forces, an act that Li was certain represented the will of the great majority of the Nationalist Party members.28 In a May 10 interview, Li elaborated on his thinking, suggesting that in order to achieve peace, he would enter into negotiations with the Communists and join in the formation of a coalition government. He communicated his confidence that the Chinese people would much prefer a reformed GMD over the CCP, and that with the overwhelming support of the people, a reformed and revolutionary Nationalist Party would curtail Communist influence to the point that the CCP would no longer be able to wage war for the control of the country.29 Apparently, Li Jishen’s plans were no idle dream: negotiations with the Communists over the forming of a coalition government evidently had already progressed. According to an embassy source, “General Chou (Zhou Enlai) and the other Communist leaders who conferred with Marshal Li on the establishment of a coalition government promised Marshal Li that he could depend on Communist support for the position as head of the new government, that the entire question of the purging of party members of the GMD would be left to Marshal Li and his associates, and that the Chinese Communist and Central Government forces would cease all military operations and would remain in their positions from the moment when the Generalissimo ceased to control the Central


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Government.”30 Li’s political position certainly presented the United States with an intriguing alternative. It did not take long, however, for Washington to reject Li Jishen and the option he offered. After all, Li had undertaken talks with the Communists; moreover, he continued to shape his immediate political plans around the proposal for a coalition government, an idea no longer palatable to the United States. Furthermore, the marshal’s anti-Communism appeared suspect, as he had recently concluded that while perhaps Communists elsewhere had bent every effort to acquire dictatorial powers, Chinese Communists were entirely different.31 According to the founding manifesto of the Guomindang Revolutionary Committee, the dictatorship that had to be overthrown was the dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek; moreover, to accomplish that task, the Chinese people had to oppose the United States. The manifesto warned, “If we go after Chiang but don’t oppose the imperialist policies of the American reactionaries to destroy China’s democracy and peace, then even if we do overthrow the dictatorial power of the Chiang family, there will still be the possibility that with the support of U.S. reactionaries, a new anti-democratic political power may be established.”32 This anti-Americanism was surely sufficient to condemn Li Jishen in the eyes of U.S. officials, but one other element of the GMDRC’s programme closed the case. Perhaps most offensive to Washington was the fact that Li’s Guomindang Revolutionary Committee had embraced not only Sun’s Three People’s Principles, but also his “Three Great Policies.” These policies, proclaimed while Sun lay on his death bed but always disclaimed by Chiang Kai-shek, included the following: (1) alliance with the Soviet Union, (2) alliance with the Chinese Communist Party, and (3) support for peasants and workers. The Three Great Policies, in the eyes of the GMDRC, provided the basis for gathering the revolutionary forces necessary to achieve victory.33 In line with this programme, Li and the Revolutionary Committee had joined with other democratic organizations in approving the Communists’ recently promulgated May Day slogans that called for a new People’s Consultative Conference and the creation of a coalition government with the CCP. In America’s view, therefore—in spite of Li’s organizing skills, his commitment to reform, and his plans to curtail the Communist influence in China—he was nevertheless undeserving of serious support. On August 12, Secretary of State Marshall made the U.S. position crystal clear to embassy personnel in China: the American government would not “give any implication of support, encouragement or acceptability of coalition government in China with Communist participation.” Nor would the

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United States again offer “its good services as mediator.”34 Although Truman had already publicly rejected coalition with the CCP five months earlier at his March 10 press conference,35 Marshall had wanted to keep this policy under wraps as far the Chinese public was concerned for the following two reasons: first, he feared that anti-American activists in China would seize on this policy to accuse the United States of prolonging civil war; and second, he feared that Chiang Kai-shek would read this policy as an offer of unlimited aid.36 Marshall was clearly quite conscious of the impact of American policy on China. Though in August, Secretary Marshall still wanted to keep the Chinese in the dark about this policy, in the face of Li’s bold plan to eliminate the Generalissimo and create a coalition government, and, perhaps more importantly, in the face of the upcoming presidential election in the United States in which Truman’s own anti-Communist credentials would be put to the test, the secretary of state determined that, at least among embassy personnel and U.S. policy makers, a clear statement rejecting any cooperation with the CCP was absolutely necessary.

E CONOMIC R EFORM : T HE G OLD Y UAN F IASCO If liberals were unable to act as a lever to reform the GMD and if Li Jishen’s willingness to work with the Communist Party had rendered him a pariah, there remained little that either Washington or its emissaries in China could do to rescue American interests there. Concerned nevertheless about China’s deteriorating economic picture, during August 1948, Ambassador Stuart did successfully manage to urge upon the Generalissimo a last-ditch economic reform effort. Under the plan, new measures were taken to strengthen the currency and curb the skyrocketing inflation. The radical initiatives included wage and price controls, a ban on all labor strikes, and the nationalization of all gold, silver, and foreign currency. The middle classes were forced to turn in all their precious metals in exchange for a new currency, the Gold Yuan. Conceptualized by Weng Wenhao, president of the Nationalist Government’s Executive Yuan, the reform effort became the centerpiece of Chiang’s program of “national reconstruction,” and he put his own son, Chiang Ching-kuo (Jiang Jingguo), in charge of enforcing the stringent measures. But by October—just two months after the plan’s inception—the economic reform had not only failed, it had even exacerbated China’s financial crisis. The printing of more and more paper money to cover military losses and government debt continued to devalue the new currency, as it


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had the old. By the end of the month, the wage and price controls had to be rescinded, and on November 1, Chiang Ching-kuo resigned. Meanwhile, many of those who had surrendered their gold and silver under threat of punishment faced financial ruin as the original exchange rate of one U.S. dollar to four yuan plummeted over the next several months; by the spring of 1949, one U.S. dollar could buy five to ten million Gold Yuan. The GMD reform effort thus “in effect, expropriated the middle class.”37 In summing up this debacle, historian Tsou Tang observed that these “expropriated” people must have wondered at the time how the Communists could be any worse.38 Wild speculations about imminent political developments accompanied GMD failures on the economic front. Some sources predicted that the GMD Revolutionary Committee would indeed join with the CCP to form a new coalition government, with Li Jishen as president and Mao Zedong as vice president.39 Others foresaw the establishment of regional regimes with Chiang’s brother-in-law Song Ziwen (T. V. Soong), for example, taking control of China’s southernmost province, Guangdong.40 Rumors of the imminent collapse of the Chiang Kai-shek presidency circulated alongside conjectures that Mao Zedong might split from the “socialist camp,” as had Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito earlier in the year. This political speculation, coupled with the failure of economic reform and the rapid advances of the Communists’ People’s Liberation Army, left the United States so uncertain as to China’s future that the Truman administration decided in October to undertake a policy of disengagement. Marshall’s only statement would be that “the United States Government will certainly continue to support the Nationalist Government as long as it remains an important factor on the Chinese scene.”41 Marshall wanted to maintain a posture of support for Chiang during the last weeks of Truman’s election campaign, and at the same time he hoped to assure the United States maximum freedom of action in the future by limiting American commitments at the present moment. Indeed, the outcome of the 1948 election soon raised the question as to just what was becoming of the Nationalist government and whether it continued to merit the support Marshall was still offering.

T HE D EMISE

OF

C HIANG K AI - SHEK

Truman’s unexpected victory over Thomas Dewey in November dashed the hopes of Chiang Kai-shek that a conservative Republican administration would come to power in Washington, providing massive infusions of

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aid to the GMD with no strings—no demands for reform—attached. Dewey had made support for Chiang a major campaign issue in June with his criticism of the Truman administration for its failure to deliver “far greater assistance” to the Nationalists in their fight against Communism.42 Disappointed in Dewey’s failure and facing an increasingly desperate political and military situation at home, Chiang resigned from office in January 1949, leaving Li Zongren to assume the post of acting president. As a final political gesture, however, Chiang offered a peace initiative to end China’s civil war. On January 1, Chiang called for talks leading toward a peace settlement based on a five-point proposal, outlined in his New Year’s message as follows: I have no desire of my own other than [1] that the peace negotiations should not impair the country’s independence and integrity but instead should help the rehabilitation of the people; [2] that the sacred constitution should not be violated by my action and that democratic constitutionalism should not thereby be undermined; [3] that the form of government of the Republic of China should be guaranteed and the legally constituted authority of the Republic of China should not be interrupted; [4] that the armed forces should be definitely preserved; and [5] that the people should be allowed to continue their free way of life and maintain their present minimum standard of living.43

Chiang added, “If only peace can be realized, I certainly do not care if I remain in office or retire, but will abide by the common will of the people.”44 To the ever-growing number of Chiang’s critics during the winter of 1948–49, this Five Point Plan served only as further evidence of his woefully aloof detachment from reality. His plan trumpeted China’s “independence and integrity,” yet many knew and were harshly critical of the Generalissimo’s reliance first on U.S. military aid and then on U.S. economic aid in his prosecution of the civil war. Chiang’s call to uphold the constitution and maintain the form of government of the Republic of China was a call to affirm two of his primary political accomplishments of the past two years; yet these accomplishments remained deeply divisive and hotly contested, particularly by those many democrats who objected to the convening of the first National Assembly (where the constitution was ratified) without the participation of the Democratic League and the Communist Party, and who still endorsed a coalition government and the end of one-party rule. The Generalissimo’s resolve to preserve the armed forces could hardly have impressed those who were all too aware of the corruption within the military, the deplorable conditions facing those pressed into service, the


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flagging morale of the troops, the use of military police to snuff out dissent, and the hopeless deployment of the armed forces in a ruinous civil war to exterminate the “Communist bandits.” To those arrested, beaten, or driven underground, or to those whose friends or loved ones had disappeared or been killed, Chiang’s reference to the “free way of life” must have seemed a cruel joke; to those who had taken part in the anti-hunger campaigns or who had lost their life savings in the Gold Yuan fiasco, his reference to the maintenance of “their present minimum standard of living” could hardly have been warmly embraced. Yet these five points remained Chiang’s basis for peace. Indeed, Chiang’s five-point peace plan elicited a scathing rebuttal from CCP Chairman Mao Zedong that raised many of these very criticisms. Mao’s commentary was unusual for the biting sarcasm that laced the piece from start to finish. In response to Chiang’s point one, for example, that “peace negotiations should not impair the country’s independence and integrity,” Mao responded, “Peace” [to Chiang Kai-shek] is all right, but “peace” is a million times wrong if it impairs the “independence and integrity” of the state of the four big families and the comprador and landlord classes. “Peace” is absolutely all wrong if it impairs such treaties as the Sino-U.S. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation, the Sino-U.S. Air Transport Agreement, and the Sino-U.S. bilateral Agreement, or if it impairs such prerogatives enjoyed by the United States in China as the stationing of ground, naval and air forces, the building of military bases, the exploitation of mines and the monopoly of trade, or if it interferes with China becoming a U.S. colony— in short, if it impairs any such measures as protect the “independence and integrity” of Chiang Kai-shek’s reactionary state.45

As to Chiang’s insistence that peace must “help the rehabilitation of the people,” Mao replied, “‘Peace’ must help the rehabilitation of the Chinese reactionaries, who have been defeated but not yet wiped out, so that, once rehabilitated, they can stage a comeback and extinguish the revolution. This is exactly what ‘peace’ is for. . . . ‘[T]he running dog can no longer run’ and the Americans are angry; a rest-cure, however brief, is better than none.”46 Mao’s comment on Chiang’s point five that “the people should be allowed to continue their free way of life and maintain their present minimum standard of living” carried the same tone, and revealed simultaneously the increasing significance to the CCP of the groupings in urban China that constituted the social base of the middle forces. He wrote, “What is the use of peace if the war criminals and the [comprador and

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landlord] classes to which they belong cannot preserve their freedom to oppress and exploit and cannot maintain their standard of lordly, luxurious, loose, and idle living? To preserve all this, it is of course necessary for workers, peasants, intellectuals, government employees and teachers to maintain their present ‘free way of life and minimum standard of living,’ a life of cold and hunger.”47 On this point, Mao concluded that, according to Chiang Kai-shek, “if the Communist Party still refuses peace, so that this wonderful way of life and standard of living can not be maintained, then it will be guilty of a crime for which it deserves to die ten thousand deaths, and ‘the Communist Party will be held responsible for all the consequences.’”48 The sarcasm in Mao’s commentary on Chiang’s peace plan apparently captured a widespread mood in China. A foreign news agency was quoted as having reported, “Shanghai’s response to Chiang Kai-shek’s New Year message is cold.”49 Nevertheless, while Chiang’s proposal met with derision, the popular desire for a genuine peace had not abated. For Mao and the Communist Party, it was not enough simply to make a mockery of the already disparaged Chiang regime and its pathetic peace plan; in order to address the demand of the people for an end to civil war, the CCP would have to resolve a critical contradiction.

T HE CCP

AND THE M IDDLE F ORCES , OR R EVOLUTION ?

1949:

P EACE

Even as Chiang Kai-shek was issuing his New Year’s message and Mao was responding, Communist military forces were advancing on the battlefield. By early 1949, the PLA had gained control over virtually the whole of China north of the Yangzi River. Though in a strong military position, the CCP could ill-afford politically to ignore a call for peace. An end to the civil war remained the most persistent and widespread demand of the Chinese people as a whole, including of course those urban middle forces who remained uncommitted. Moreover, the CCP’s critical need for the technical and administrative skills of the middle strata only increased in urgency as city after city fell to the PLA.50 The party went to considerable lengths to reaffirm the policies of the New-Democratic united front between the laboring classes and the professional, intellectual, and business classes throughout late 1948 and 1949. Success in winning the needed cooperation of these key social strata required the Communists to pay attention to their demands—not least their demand for peace.


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The popular demand for peace, however, posed a thorny problem for the CCP as the new year of 1949 dawned: how could the party pursue peace without at the same time dissipating the revolutionary momentum on the military front that appeared certain to win victory before the year was over? The Communists moved quickly to resolve this immediate dilemma by offering a counterproposal to Chiang’s—a peace plan based on the CCP’s own accomplishments over the course of the civil war. But in formulating and propagating this plan, still another dilemma surfaced: the long-standing tension in CCP united front policy between building alliances with the middle forces on the one hand, and raising criticisms of them on the other. Party analyses and directives from this period detail how the Communists strove to resolve both contradictions. A key document addressing these contradictions was Mao’s own New Year’s message of December 30, 1948, calling on the Communist Party and the Chinese people to “carry the revolution through to the end.”51 Anticipating Chiang’s peace overtures, Mao warned that “all of a sudden the enemies of the Chinese people are doing their best to assume a harmless and even pitiable look,” and that both the Guomindang reactionaries (Chiang and the CC Clique) and the Guomindang “liberals” (Li Zongren and the reformers) were serving American interests by advocating peace at this particular juncture in the revolution.52 Mao argued that the United States, having failed to defeat the Communists by purely military strength, was placing more and more emphasis on political machinations, playing on the popular demand for peace to organize an opposition faction within the revolutionary alliance, either to bring the revolution to a halt or, failing that objective, to moderate it and prevent it from encroaching too far on the interests of either the United States or America’s Chinese clients.53 Thus the key question facing the revolutionaries at the present moment, Mao asserted, was whether the “democratic forces” under CCP leadership would split “half-way” through the struggle or cooperate to take “unanimous action to overthrow the common enemy.”54 Mao stressed that an “opposition faction” or “middle road” could be fatal to the cause. He recounted the Greek fable of the farmer who took pity on a frozen snake, held it to his bosom, and, after it revived, fell victim to its venomous bite. The GMD and non-GMD liberals who advocated peace at this time were, in Mao’s words, “snake-like scoundrels” who were not “workers, peasants or soldiers, nor . . . the friends of workers, peasants and soldiers.”55 Although Mao reiterated the need to expand the participation of allies in the revolution, he stated emphatically, “Besides keeping their friends in mind, the Chinese people, now at the high tide of revolution, should also keep their enemies and the friends of

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their enemies in mind.”56 The People’s Republic of China would soon be proclaimed and governed by a democratic coalition under CCP leadership, Mao declared; but “no reactionaries” would participate.57 Perhaps the most important political message transmitted by Mao in this article was that the middle forces had a dual nature. While some would become allies of the revolution, others would oppose it—even from within the “democratic” ranks. Mao’s unusually heavy emphasis on the negative side of the liberals as a social force seems in this case to have been closely linked to the specific historical moment when he assessed the peace initiative to be little more than a American design to split the revolutionary forces. Mao’s warnings may not have been ill-advised. Five months earlier, Ambassador Stuart had cabled Washington with his thoughts on how the United States might be able to utilize Marshal Li Jishen against the Communists. Although Stuart was displeased that Li had expressed his willingness to enter into negotiations with the CCP over the creation of a coalition government, the ambassador nevertheless offered the following suggestion: While we would have no hope of persuading him to change this course of action, we feel that it would be useful if we could persuade him to issue a statement in the early stages [of the] establishment [of] his provisional government which would specify [the] clear and basic antithesis between his aims and those of Communists. . . . It is our feeling that if Marshal Li were to make some such statement as this, it would serve to convince many [people] of his essentially anti-Communist predisposition who would otherwise brand him as pro-Communist for his advocacy of an end to civil war. This, of course, would permit us to encourage him, as situation required, in any opposition to Communists that he might make.58

It was clearly not beyond American officials close to the China scene to consider plans to utilize democrats to divide the revolutionary ranks. By January 1949, however, Communist moves to advance a peace initiative on their own terms frustrated any such lingering hopes Stuart may have harbored that the United States could split the revolutionaries over the demand for peace.

T HE C OMMUNIST P EACE I NITIATIVE Two weeks after Chiang Kai-shek’s New Year’s peace proposal was aired, Chairman Mao made the following important announcement:


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Basing itself on the will of the people, the Communist Party of China declares that although the People’s Liberation Army has ample strength and abundant reason to wipe out completely the remnant forces of the reactionary Kuomintang (Guomindang) government in not too long a period and has full confidence that it can do so, nevertheless, in order to hasten the end of the war, bring about genuine peace and alleviate the people’s sufferings, the Communist Party of China is willing to hold peace negotiations with the reactionary Nanking (Nanjing) Kuomintang government or with any local governments or military groups of the Kuomintang.59

The CCP thus declared its intention to take up the peace challenge. On January 14, Mao issued the Communist Party’s alternative peace proposal. Noting that “in the last ten days the people throughout the country have made their will clear,” he concluded, “they eagerly hope for an early peace, but they do not approve the [reactionary terms of] the socalled peace of the war criminals.”60 The CCP now was offering instead the following terms: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

punish the war criminals; abolish the bogus constitution; abolish the bogus “constituted authority”; reorganize all reactionary troops on democratic principles; confiscate bureaucrat capital; reform the land system; abrogate treasonable treaties; and convene a political consultative conference without the participation of reactionary elements, and form a democratic coalition government to take over all the powers of the reactionary Nanking Kuomintang government and of its subordinate governments at all levels.61

The announcement of this Eight-Point Peace Proposal ended with a call to the Chinese people, to the democratic parties and people’s organizations, and even to “patriots in the Nanking Kuomintang governmental system” to embrace this proposal as the plan to bring about genuine peace. It is striking just how strong the support for this proposal was among the democratic parties. The Democratic League, for example, issued a statement that Chairman Mao’s Eight-Point Peace Proposal “completely reflects the will of the people throughout the country.” It continued to state, “For every genuine peace-loving person, not one word, not one phrase of the document could be denied.”62 Since its inception, the DL had championed a coalition government (point eight); later, it had consistently

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refused to recognize the Nationalist government’s “bogus National Assembly” and “bogus constitution” (points two and three). Now the League appeared particularly gratified that the CCP proposal closely paralleled its own analysis of the past year. At the January 1948 First Plenary Session of the League’s Third Executive Committee, the organization had warned that no genuine peace and democracy could be achieved without wiping out the economic base of the Chiang Kai-shek ruling elite. Moreover, the League had concluded at the same meeting that land reform was a fundamental democratic demand, the key to eliminating landlord rule. Furthermore, the League’s Political Report from the Plenary Session had called for the abrogation of the “new unequal treaties” Chiang had negotiated with the United States.63 Mao’s peace proposal incorporated all three of these analyses by listing the confiscation of bureaucrat capital, land reform, and the rejection of “treasonable treaties” (points five, six, and seven) as prerequisites for peace. The League clearly welcomed the revolutionary implications of the Eight-Point Peace Proposal, even going so far as to declare, “Today, the only way forward for [the reactionary Nanjing government clique] is to immediately lay down their weapons and surrender unconditionally.”64 Other democrats welcomed the CCP plan with similar enthusiasm. Emphasizing the historical tragedies for China of the unfinished Revolution of 1911 and the Northern Expedition, representatives of virtually every democratic party signed a joint statement on January 22, repeating Mao’s December 30 admonition to “carry the revolution through to the end.” The list of fifty-three signatories read like a who’s who of the democratic movement, including Li Jishen, Shen Junru, Ma Xulun, Guo Moruo, Tan Pingshan, Peng Zemin, Zhang Bojun, Mao Dun, Zhang Naiqi, Li Dequan, Xu Guangping, and Shi Fuliang, among others. The declaration charged that U.S. imperialism was pursuing a two-pronged plan to derail the Chinese revolution: on the one hand, it was attempting to infiltrate the revolutionary ranks to build reactionary organization in hopes of obstructing or pacifying the struggle; on the other hand, it was urging the Nanjing clique to pursue peace in order to buy the time necessary for the counterrevolutionary forces to recover and regroup to make a stand south of the Yangzi River or in the border provinces.65 The signatories called for heightened vigilance and firmer unity within the revolutionary ranks to prevent internal sabotage and for determined resistance to and exposure of any U.S.-inspired peace initiatives. “We Chinese have already suffered enough,” the statement read. “We cannot be deceived once again by the reactionary schemes of Chiang Kai-shek and the United States.” Rather, the necessary course of action was to push for


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acceptance of Mao’s Eight-Point Peace Proposal, which the commentary described as a “ruthless counter-attack” against Chiang’s peace plan. “From start to finish, Chiang Kai-shek has wanted us to be slaves to the Four Big Families and to American imperialism,” the declaration charged, “but we want to be the genuine masters of a people’s democratic republic.” Only the CCP peace plan, the statement concluded, could lead to that goal.66 If the United States had indeed hoped that Chiang’s peace plan might divide the liberals from the Communists within the revolutionary ranks, once again the results were disappointing. Making matters even worse for Washington, the GMD itself splintered over the peace initiatives. Chiang retired on January 21, 1949, citing his desire to end hostilities and the nation’s “unreserved support” for his peace initiative as reasons for his decision. But he failed to clarify why, if indeed his proposal enjoyed such universal support, he could no longer perform his functions, duties, and powers as president and had to step down. Be that as it may, Chiang’s retirement left it up to Acting President Li Zongren to carry through on the peace initiative. Ever since the conflict over his election the previous April, however, Li had failed to fully reconcile with Chiang, and the strife between them continued through early 1949 as the Generalissimo, though retired, used his political machine to short-circuit many of Li’s political and military actions. This animosity, together with Li’s own dissatisfaction with Chiang’s proposal, resulted in his making no effort to promote the Generalissimo’s plan for peace. Instead, Li decided to consider the Communist Party’s eight-point counterproposal as a basis for negotiations.67 Li’s actions drew America’s ire and deepened Washington’s mistrust. Not only had Li failed to build the political, economic, and military strength necessary to make him a viable leader in the eyes of the United States, but now he had also actively demonstrated his willingness as head of the Nationalist Party to accommodate the Communists. Perhaps most galling to Washington, however, was Li’s request for a public statement of American support for him in his new position as acting president, even as he was arranging a three-part agreement with the Soviet Union that would (1) recognize China’s neutrality in any future international conflict; (2) eliminate, to the highest degree possible, U.S. influence in China; and (3) establish genuine cooperation between China and the USSR. The State Department found Li’s actions “incredible.”68 Although the United States was currently entertaining hopes that Li might be able to provide the leadership necessary to defend South China from the advance of the PLA, Washington’s uncertainty about Li’s resolve and ability to carry

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through with such a plan intensified. The Truman administration thus withheld assistance.69 Denied American aid, Li continued talks with the Communists. With Li’s rejection of Chiang’s peace plan and his acceptance of the CCP plan as the basis for negotiations, Mao was able to note with satisfaction, “The Americans are looking on in impotent fury because their brats have failed them.”70 The Communist success in this important diplomatic battle apparently eased Mao’s concerns that elements from among the liberal middle forces might work to derail the revolution in the name of peace. Thereafter, Mao’s warnings about the negative side of the liberals abated. In fact, he soon warmly welcomed the cooperation of GMD Beiping Commander Fu Zuoyi in the “peaceful liberation” of that city, and he even softened his stance toward Acting President Li Zongren71 despite the fact that both Fu and Li had been listed by the Communist Party in late December not as liberals, but rather as “war criminals well known for their heinous crimes, who, all Chinese agree, should receive the just penalty.”72 During early April, Li Zongren worked out with the CCP an “Agreement on Internal Peace.”73 But before he signed the pact, he found himself under strong pressure to renegotiate. Both the United States and Chiang Kai-shek found the agreement unacceptable. Li thus hesitated in the face of the Communists’ April 20 deadline for ratification, and at midnight, April 21, the PLA crossed the Yangzi River. Within five weeks, the Communists had seized Nanjing, Hankou, and Shanghai. It might be inferred from these events surrounding the peace initiatives of early 1949 that Mao and the CCP maintained an ambiguous attitude toward the liberal middle forces; in most circumstances they were valuable and necessary allies, but at certain moments their ideological differences with communism could result in political differences that might stop the revolution “half-way” and thus kill it. Initially beset with this concern, Mao had emphasized in his New Year’s report that, even as essential “allies,” middle forces could not be considered the most reliable of China’s social activists. There may even have been a threat implied by Mao’s comment that it was important to identify who was a genuine friend and who was an enemy. Mao’s reference to “workers, peasants and soldiers” described those core social groups by whom and for whom the revolution was fought. But Mao offered a more precise description of the relation of the social classes elsewhere in the same December 30 article. In light of the new period characterized by “the city leading the village,” Mao observed, “We must wholeheartedly rely on the working class, unite with the laboring masses, win over the intellectuals, and win over to our side as many as possible of the national bourgeois elements and their


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representatives who can cooperate with us—or neutralize them—so that we can defeat enemies step by step.”74 In the cities, in short, the middle forces were extremely important; the party had to win them over or neutralize them. But the Communists would rely on the workers. After defeating Chiang’s peace plan, however, Mao’s tone and emphasis changed; he now began to accord the middle forces a prominence virtually on par with the laboring classes. Mao’s writings from March 1949 onward continued to emphasize the theme that as a social force, the middle elements could be divided into two groups. But now, rather than highlighting an antagonistic contradiction between genuine allies and those who could “kill” the revolution, Mao shifted the line of demarcation, describing a nonantagonistic contradiction between those joining the laboring classes who could solidly be counted among the “basic forces” of the people’s democratic dictatorship, and those others who had not yet been won over. In his “Report to Second Session of the Seventh Central Committee” on March 5, Mao described “the entire working class, the entire peasantry and the broad masses of revolutionary intellectuals” as “the leading and basic forces” of the new state coming into being.75 The urban petty bourgeoisie, the national bourgeoisie, and “their intellectual and political groups” were social forces with whom the party would “unite.” The CCP pledged long-term cooperation with “non-Party democrats,” entrusting these liberals with both responsibility and authority in the creation of new organs of state power.76

C LEARING THE B ATTLEFIELD : PARTING S HOTS AGAINST THE U NITED S TATES As the Communists and their democratic allies victoriously set about the task of crafting a new polity to replace the Nationalist party-state during the summer of 1949, a final opportunity presented itself for the CCP to fire its parting shots, figuratively speaking, at the United States for its role in China over the previous four years. These salvoes, directed at Washington primarily in the form of newspaper articles and broadly organized public discussions, appear, however, to have been launched with the aim not so much of teaching Washington a lesson, but rather of driving home a lesson to the Chinese people, the middle forces in particular. The event sparking this anti-American barrage, the last before the founding of the People’s Republic of China less than two months later, was the August 5 publication of Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s “Letter of Transmittal”

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that accompanied the presentation to President Truman of the State Department’s China White Paper. Officially entitled, United States Relations with China, With Special Reference to the Period 1944–1949, the voluminous White Paper was prepared, in Acheson’s words, as a “frank record” of the “salient facts” that related to the creation and execution of American policy in China during the fateful postwar years.77 Amid the thickened atmosphere of antiCommunism spreading ever more broadly and deeply over America’s political and cultural landscape, accusing fingers were pointing at government officials who had “lost China.” Acheson’s tome attempted to divert the blame from the State Department and Truman administration. In brief, the White Paper maintained that the United States did everything possible to support Chiang Kai-shek, but two factors, the Generalissimo’s refusal to listen to American appeals to undertake governmental reform and his own military ineptitude, doomed the Nationalists to defeat. Speaking to critics in Washington who were asserting that more aid to the Nationalists would have destroyed Communism in China, Acheson responded with figures showing that in the postwar period, the United States had already provided Chiang with “more than 50 percent of the monetary expenditures of the Chinese Government,” a higher proportion of the budget than America had provided to any Western European government during the same time.78 More aid would not have saved Chiang, Acheson asserted. Nothing short of a full-scale U.S. military invasion would have achieved that end, and such a commitment, following hard on the heels of World War II, would not have been tolerated by either the Chinese or the American people. Summing up, Acheson concluded, The unfortunate but inescapable fact is that the ominous result of the civil war in China was beyond the control of the government of the United States. Nothing that this country did or could have done within the reasonable limits of its capabilities could have changed that result; nothing that was left undone by this country has contributed to it. It was the product of internal Chinese forces, forces which this country tried to influence but could not. A decision was arrived at within China, if only a decision by default.79

Attempting to validate the anti-Communist credentials of the Truman White House and at the same time to provide a glimmer of optimism in this desolate picture he had painted of China’s distress, Acheson tacked on his personal belief that “the democratic individualism in China” would


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reassert itself. He added his belief that “she [would] throw off the foreign [i.e., Soviet] yoke.”80 The Communist Party seized upon this “Letter of Transmittal” to launch a major public opinion campaign against the United States and its activities in China throughout the course of the civil war. The party’s central news agency produced a major analysis and critique of Acheson’s argument, and this important article was accompanied by no fewer than five separate pieces on the subject penned by Mao Zedong himself, indicating that the Communist Party was continuing the battle to win over still more of China’s middle forces. Mao described these democrats as follows: “Many Chinese liberals—the old-type democratic elements, i.e., the supporters of “democratic individualism,” whom Truman, Marshall, Acheson, Leighton Stuart and the like count on and have been trying to win over— often find themselves in a passive position and are often wrong in their judgments on the U.S. rulers, on the Guomindang, on the Soviet Union and also on the Communist Party of China.”81 Mao continued, It is the duty of progressives—the Communists, members of the democratic parties, politically conscious workers, the student youth and progressive intellectuals—to unite with the intermediate strata, middle-of-the-roaders, and backward elements of various strata, with all those in People’s China who are still wavering and hesitating, . . . to give them sincere help, criticize their wavering character, educate them, win them over to the side of the masses, prevent the imperialists from pulling them over, and tell them to cast away illusions and prepare for struggle. . . . When they are won over, imperialism will be entirely isolated, and Acheson will no longer be able to play any of his tricks.82

Although the most active liberal elements—those in the democratic parties, the students, and progressive intellectuals—had been won to the side of the revolution, others of an independent mindset, who embraced the classical liberal ideal of individualism, had not yet been brought into the fold. Mao called upon those who had joined the revolutionary cause to enlist now in the effort to win over these remaining middle forces. The Democratic League responded with a number of sharp critiques of the White Paper. In an August 23 commentary, the League stated that it could draw only one lesson from its study of the document: “For the past 100 years, the United States has continuously carried out aggression against China; in the past five years, the aggression has only intensified;

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and today America is in the midst of planning stepped up aggression against China.”83 The League identified the following three policies the United States had adopted to carry out this aggression: (1) utilizing certain Chinese people to sow confusion among the Chinese people as a whole, (2) forming partnerships for plunder, and (3) engaging directly in rash actions. Examples of these policies included Acheson’s suggestion that advocates of “democratic individualism” might still assert themselves to alter the course of the Chinese Revolution, America’s current policy to rebuild Japan, and the U.S. decision to impose an economic blockade upon liberated China.84 The League commentary gave particular attention to two issues Acheson had raised in the Letter of Transmittal, “democratic individualism” and “the foreign yoke.” Certain that those “liberal intellectuals who still harbored illusions about the United States” would be awakened to reality by the White Paper, the League asserted that all true advocates of “democratic individualism” were motivated by self-respect and love for their country; they most surely were not willing to “act as slaves to those who would sell out the motherland to U.S. imperialism.” The statement called on the “democratic individualists” to rally instead to the banner of New Democracy and struggle to “beat back imperialist aggression.”85 As to Acheson’s reference to the “yoke” of (Soviet) “foreign imperialism,” the League reiterated its stance that in the world at that time, there was no middle ground between democracy and antidemocracy, between progress and reaction, between friends and enemies. Citing Sun Yat-sen’s definition of friends as those countries that treated China as an equal, the statement identified the Soviet Union as a friend. America was the enemy. Conceding that the ideology behind the programme of New Democracy contained some elements transmitted from abroad, presumably from the Soviet Union, the League argued that the source of the ideology was immaterial and that in fact, ideology knows no national borders. The relevant question was whether or not a particular ideology was progressive and provided legitimacy to a system of governance that was for the good of the people. New Democracy, therefore, was not an ideology imposed as a “yoke” upon the Chinese people from the outside; it was rather a revolutionary programme embraced by the Chinese people in their own interests. Continuing to stress the theme of progressivism, the League’s denunciation of the White Paper concluded by drawing a sharp distinction between the U.S. government and the American people, offering a conciliatory note that friendship between the Chinese and American people could be maintained and strengthened in their common struggle for progress.86


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Many progressives beyond the Democratic League also stepped forward to join Mao and the CCP in condemnation of Acheson and the United States. According to Knight Biggerstaff, an American professor who was an eyewitness to these events as they unfolded in liberated Nanjing, the city erupted into what he described as an “almost hysterical anti-American outburst surrounding the White Paper.” Biggerstaff reported, “Day after day editorials, speeches, resolutions and reports of round table discussion groups and protest meetings were spread across the pages of Hsin Hua Jih Bao (Xinhua ribao or New China daily), challenging American policy and the White Paper from every angle.”87 He went on to observe that during a period of more than a month, only one issue of the official newspaper failed to refer to the White Paper, and sometimes extra pages had been added to include all the attacks.88 In the midst of this ferment, multiplied many times over in cities throughout China, Mao contended that many middle-of-the-roaders were being won over to the Communist perspective. He noted, “The White Paper has become material for the education of the Chinese people. For many years, a number of Chinese (at one time a great number) only halfbelieved what we Communists said on many questions. . . . This situation has undergone a change since August 5, 1949.”89 Having solicited responses from the Democratic League and many others, Mao himself proceeded to contribute to this struggle with his highly polemical articles on the China White Paper, offering in some cases a paragraph by paragraph rebuttal to Acheson’s arguments, all with the intent of exposing the machinations of “U.S. imperialism.” Mao directed most of his criticism not at Acheson’s account of events but rather at his interpretation. Mao would not accept that U.S. activities had been undertaken merely for the good of the Chinese people with no ulterior motives; nor would he accept that U.S. actions reflected America’s commitment to noninterference in Chinese politics. Acheson’s account, Mao contended, exposed a very different reality. In addressing his antiCommunist domestic critics, Acheson had readily submitted telling statistics on the vast quantities of U.S. economic aid and military aid that had gone to China—all to demonstrate just how substantially the United States had supported Chiang Kai-shek. The extent of American interference in China on behalf of the Chiang dictatorship was laid bare. Mao could thus make his claim that many minds had been changed because of the fact that Acheson’s data by and large confirmed the general charges the CCP and other progressives had been making about American activities during the civil war: that U.S. aid to Chiang had prolonged the

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bloodshed and suffering. Those Chinese who had been unsure, Mao said, now “could not help but believe us, and many had their eyes opened.”90 Moreover, the White Paper revealed U.S. intervention in Chinese politics by detailing America’s efforts to win over the liberals in order to isolate and marginalize the Communist Party. Mao contended that this American policy was still operative. Those Chinese “tinged with liberalism” who did not want “to be taken in by the Americans” had now been alerted by Acheson that the U.S. intentions were “to recruit the so-called ‘democratic individualists’ in China, organize a U.S. fifth column and overthrow the People’s Government.”91 If Acheson had indeed hoped that his words in the Letter of Transmittal might inspire Chinese proponents of “democratic individualism” to take action against the New-Democratic revolution, however, he was mistaken. The White Paper campaign had intensified the anti-Americanism among the Chinese public, leading Mao to conclude that now even the liberals who were attracted to notions of “democratic individualism” were “promising each other not to be taken in by the Americans” and were all “on guard against the underhand intrigues of U.S. imperialism.” Once again, and for the final time before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, America would express its hope that friendly democrats could reverse the tide of the revolution—only to see the remarks result in more of these liberals siding with the CCP. As the month-long White Paper campaign finally came to a close, China’s liberal democrats, now more committed to cooperation with the Communist Party than ever before, turned their complete attention to the crucial tasks awaiting them as the new PCC was called into session.

T HE N EW P OLITICAL C ONSULTATIVE C ONFERENCE AND THE F OUNDING OF THE P EOPLE ’ S R EPUBLIC OF C HINA The Communists’ victory in the battle for the middle forces found its ultimate expression in the convening of the new Political Consultative Conference in September 1949 and the founding of the People’s Republic of China at the conclusion of the PCC on October 1. But preparations for the PCC had already been initiated a year earlier. In the late summer of 1948, the activism of the democratic opposition to Chiang Kai-shek in Hong Kong had prompted the Generalissimo to dispatch more of his secret police agents to the British colony, and outspoken liberal critics began to fear for their safety. The CCP responded by organizing its underground operatives to assist the leading democratic


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figures to escape Chiang’s clutches and make their way to China’s liberated areas in the Northeast.92 The Communists arranged for at least four different groups of democrats to leave Hong Kong during the following months. The first groups, which included Shen Junru, Tan Pingshan, and Zhang Bojun, among others, arrived in Communist-held territory as early as September 1948. But the most delicate operation involved the December evacuation of Marshal Li Jishen, head of the GMD Revolutionary Committee. Li’s considerable influence throughout China—and among Chiang’s own military leaders—made him a likely target for the GMD agents. On Christmas night, Li and his group attended a special banquet. Afterward, they gathered some food and drinks, and, as if going boating on a sight-seeing excursion, they boarded a Soviet steamer. The group managed to avoid customs inspection by changing clothes into Western suits, formal gowns, and even riding breeches to disguise themselves as businessmen. The ship set sail, and on January 12, the marshal and his party arrived in the Northeast, docking at the port city of Dalian on the Liaodong peninsula. From there, the group first made its way to the town of Lijiazhuang, where, meeting up with other democratic leaders, they joined together to issue their statement in support of Mao’s Eight-Point Peace Proposal. In mid-February, the democrats all proceeded to Beiping, two weeks after the PLA had taken control of the city.93 By March, over 350 democratic leaders had been evacuated from Chiang’s White areas and had safely arrived in Beiping. The CCP had instructed party members to treat the democrats with frankness and not to evade questions; moreover, they were to solicit opinions and criticisms from the liberals so as to strengthen the spirit of unity. In the initial meetings, the CCP followed through on its May Day slogan by assuring the democratic parties and groups of their legal status and guaranteeing their protection. Furthermore, the Communists confirmed the rights of the democratic organizations to initiate actions in their own name and to recruit new members. The CCP also pledged that the People’s Liberation Army would not interfere in the activities of the parties and that at the local level, Communist leaders would consult with the democrats to ensure unity of purpose on the way forward.94 Over the next several months, the CCP met with each of the democratic organizations, and together they determined which social constituencies each party would draw from and represent. The representatives also spent more than six weeks visiting urban and rural districts in the liberated Northeast to investigate conditions in such fields as industry, agriculture, health and sanitation, education, and culture under the policies of

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New Democracy. The inspection tours appear to have confirmed the democrats’ confidence in the structures the CCP had established, and their jointly signed report at the end of the trip noted in particular how impressed they were with the freedom of the masses to express their opinions and with the ability of central policy to be effectively transmitted down to the lowest levels.95 Having learned firsthand about the conditions—the successes and the problems—facing leaders in the liberated areas, the democrats were at last ready to join with the CCP to begin their work of nation-building in earnest. In June, the Communists and the democrats convened the preparatory meeting for the new PCC. The meeting included 134 representatives of 23 parties, organizations, minority groups, associations of overseas Chinese, and nonparty individuals of social distinction. After Mao Zedong, Li Jishen, and Shen Junru gave opening addresses to the gathering, the delegates formed six small work teams, each charged with responsibility for drafting proposals on matters ranging from governmental structure and the general programme to the national flag and national anthem. The preparatory meeting’s last assignment was to determine which groups and how many participants would be invited to participate in the new PCC. On September 21, 1949, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference at last convened, with 634 delegates and alternates in attendance, representing 45 different constituencies. Opening speeches noted the unprecedented size and unity of this conference in the long annals of Chinese history. Economist Huang Yanpei employed the metaphor of a great modern building being constructed with five grand entrances: independence, democracy, peace, unity, and prosperity with power. The flag atop the building was the banner of New Democracy. It was this vision that Huang hoped would inspire the work of the PCC.96 By September 27, the work on the language of the documents had been completed, and over the next several days, the drafts were discussed and passed. Three days later, elections were conducted, resulting in Mao Zedong being named chairman of the new Central People’s Government; the six vice chairs were split evenly between CCP leaders Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, and Gao Gang, on the one hand, and democratic leaders Song Qingling, Li Jishen, and Zhang Lan, on the other. Half the seats on nearly every major body were occupied by democrats, and a significant number of luminaries who had once been middle forces were appointed chief ministers and vice ministers in a number of key governmental bodies. Shen Junru, for example, was selected to serve as the first chief justice of the Supreme People’s Court, Ma Xulun was named head of the important Ministry of Education, and Huang Yanpei was picked to lead


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Figure 6-A In September 1949, representatives of the democratic forces joined with the Communist Party in convening the new Political Consultative Conference (the key leaders of which are pictured above), to craft the General Programme and governmental structures of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). On October 1, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the PRC. At his side on the rostrum of Tiananmen were China’s leading democrats, including Song Qingling, Li Jishen, Zhang Lan, and Shen Junru.

the strategic Ministry of Industry. In addition to all these top level positions, democrats filled many positions in the new organs of local government as well. On October 1, 1949, when Mao Zedong stood on the rostrum of the Gate of Heavenly Peace and proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China, he was flanked not only by his comrades in the Communist Party but also by his close allies from among the liberal democratic parties and groups. The evidence of the CCP’s victory in its battle with the United States for the allegiance of the middle forces could hardly have been more clearly demonstrated.

C ONCLUSION During 1947–48, the pivotal years of the Chinese civil war, the United States lost the battle for the middle forces to the Communists. The battle

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had been joined in earnest as the United States sought to achieve Marshall’s clearly stated objective of developing liberal leadership as a wedge between the “reactionary” elements of the GMD and the “extremist” elements of the CCP. Marshall’s ultimate aim was to defeat the Chinese Communists and prevent the expansion of Soviet influence in this key part of Asia. The United States failed on both counts: it neither attracted a liberal leadership, nor did it defeat the Communists. Even Soviet prestige was ascendant in China for the first decade after the founding of the People’s Republic. The reasons for the American failure in this political battle were undoubtedly numerous and complex. Perhaps the key factor emerging from this study was the relationship between Chinese domestic developments and the international situation. A brief review of the evidence presented here elucidates this conclusion. In the immediate postwar period, before the advent of the raging antiCommunism of the Cold War, the United States advocated a coalition government to unify China. There was no doubt an anti-Communist element to this plan, as both Patrick Hurley and George C. Marshall attempted to absorb the Chinese Communists into the Nationalist government as a minority party and depoliticize their army. But as long as Chiang Kai-shek remained head of the GMD, the idea of a meaningful coalition was impossible to realize. Perhaps Chiang sensed—and with some justification—that the CCP, with its strong organization among peasants in the countryside and among progressive activists in the cities, would have a political advantage in a coalition government. But for whatever reason, the Generalissimo remained determined, in spite of American policy to the contrary, to wipe out the CCP militarily. Frustrated in his year-long attempt to bring the combatants together, Marshall in January of 1947 pinned the hopes of the United States on the liberal middle forces. Throughout the months that followed, however, Chiang’s corruption, maladministration, economic failures, and political repression only worsened. The Communists, in the meantime, had been vying with the United States for the allegiance of the middle forces—and making significant headway based on three main political positions: (1) opposition to Guomindang dictatorship, (2) opposition to American aid to Chiang and to the U.S. military presence in China as factors expanding and prolonging the civil war; and (3) support for coalition government and New Democracy. By the end of 1947, as CCP strength increased, and as Chiang’s repression intensified, the Communists stepped up pressure on the middle forces to abandon any hopes of a third road and to take a clear


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stance on the side of the revolution. It was impossible for any reform organization to pursue peace and political stability and still refuse to deal with the CCP. Reflecting these changes, January of 1948 witnessed the gathering together of significant non-Communist (though not necessarily antiCommunist) forces in the form of the reorganized Democratic League and the newly organized Guomindang Revolutionary Committee, both expressing their determination to bring down the Chiang Kai-shek regime. In the months that followed, dissatisfaction over many of the same issues that had radicalized the DL and GMDRC spilled over into an internecine rebellion within the Nationalist Party itself. At the second National Assembly, still other reformist forces gathered around Li Zongren in opposition to the Generalissimo. Had the United States, even at this late moment, cut off all support for the GMD reactionaries (whom Stuart reluctantly acknowledged were led by Chiang himself), had it evacuated all its armed forces, and had it not stood opposed to the creation of a coalition government, there may have existed a possibility that the Chinese would have reached some sort of political settlement short of a Communist-led seizure of power. The CCP, after all, still remained extremely sensitive—even into 1949—to popular demands for peace. In the long run, of course, a political settlement (in 1948) between a reformed GMD and the CCP might very well have still led ultimately to the predominance of the Communist Party in the new government because of its superior organization and popular base, especially among the peasantry. But precisely at the time when the United States might have cut its losses in China by dropping its commitment to Chiang Kai-shek, cold war politics in Washington forced Truman to rule out support for any coalition government that included the Communists. The political polarization brought on by U.S.-Soviet animosities proscribed American flexibility in China.

T HE O PEN D OOR AND THE C OLD WAR : A MERICA’ S A NTI -C OMMUNIST C OMPULSION Chiang Kai-shek thus remained the recipient of American aid and support. This one-sided support for Chiang had been set in motion during the Hurley Mission. During the Marshall Mission, it continued as the United States pursued a policy that embodied two self-contradictory elements: first, while encouraging the formation of a coalition government with the Communists, America patronized only the autocrat, Chiang Kai-shek,

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who favored the suppression—if not elimination—of the CCP; and second, while criticizing the Generalissimo’s attempt to wipe out his Communist nemesis by military means, America channeled the vast amounts of military aid to Chiang that he needed to prosecute his war effort. By the spring of 1948, Washington would resolve the first of these two contradictions: coalition with the Communists would be rejected, and support for Chiang would continue. With the intensification of the Cold War, including the recent political advances by Communists in the coalition governments that had been formed in Poland and Czechoslovakia,97 the United States determined that it could no longer entertain the idea of CCP participation in a coalition government in China. At his press conference on March 10, 1948, Truman asserted that his administration “did not want any Communists in the Government of China, or anywhere else, if [it] could help it.”98 For all the promise of reform that Li Zongren had represented in his successful bid for the vice presidency at the National Assembly a few weeks later, Washington would not fully back him, in part because policy analysts thought he might come to terms with the Communists.99 Anti-Communism in its most explicit, uncompromising form—not the more subtle variety expressed earlier by co-optation through coalition— thus compelled Washington to continue to support Chiang Kai-shek. The Generalissimo embodied the only significant political force in China that refused any concession to the Communists. To be sure, the United States was painfully aware of the obvious military debacle unfolding for the Nationalists by early 1948 and thus could hardly predict success for Chiang’s ongoing “bandit suppression” campaign. But at the same time, America had arrived at the point in the Cold War where it could support no other option short of Chiang’s own adamant position: no deals with Communists.100 The anti-Communism prompting this tactical shift in U.S. policy toward China was simultaneously prompting the strategic shift in U.S. policy toward East Asia as a whole—the shift toward building up Japan as the region’s bulwark against Communist expansion. America’s rallying cry of anti-Communism thus not only failed to resonate among Chinese liberals, but it actually produced results that the middle forces found abhorrent: the bolstering of the despised Chiang regime, the extension of the civil war, and the restrengthening of Japan. The United States could not escape the blame and outrage its actions spawned among the very democrats upon whom its China policy was based. American anti-Communism in Asia, however, was not merely a kneejerk reaction to a perceived Soviet threat. Nor was it simply a mindless


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crusade of rabid ideologues in Washington that led to an avoidable loss of support among Chinese middle forces. To the contrary, while Communist ideology was indeed an anathema to American ideals of individualism and the pursuit of self-interest and private profit, more importantly, antiCommunism was intimately connected to eminently rational concerns on a global scale for the postwar well-being of American economic and political elites. The United States in 1947 and 1948 became convinced of the need for economic recovery in Europe and Asia to provide the trade, materials, markets, investment opportunities, and, ultimately, the dollars necessary to support America’s postwar economy and to assure its postwar position of global hegemon, or, as expressed at the time, “leader of the free world.” Threats to this new world economic order existed even within the American camp. Some countries, like Britain, entertained notions of building a social welfare state and establishing autarkic economic relationships; others, like Japan, represented financial dependencies, draining the United States of monies and offering little in return. The need for economic recovery in industrialized countries such as Britain and Japan took on more urgency as America observed that poverty and hunger provided conditions in which Communism could grow. If Communists came to power, especially in these economically developed countries, U.S. power would be seriously challenged. To obviate that outcome, the United States embraced the idea raised by Secretary of State Marshall: an international recovery program based on the three principles of openness, free trade, and American supervision.101 Of course Washington knew that such a plan would never be acceptable to the Soviet Union, but that was precisely the point: policy analyst George Kennan had convinced the Truman administration that the key to the defense of American interests in the postwar world was containment of Communism within the Soviet Union, preventing its spread to other centers of world power, in particular Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States.102 The Soviet Union, of course, loomed as the largest threat to American interests, not only by its refusal to accept a predominant role for U.S. capital throughout all of Europe, but also by its efforts to form a bloc of its own that might be closed off to American economic penetration. U.S. fears of the extension of that bloc—and the consequent loss of trade and business opportunities—explain why American descriptions of Soviet actions at this time repeatedly referred to “aggression,” “expansion,” “foreign domination,” and even “imperialism,” and why Kennan’s notion of “containment” became the watchword in Washington. The specter, whether real or imagined, of an ever-expanding Communism bringing

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countries and whole regions of the world into a sphere that served Soviet, not American, interests thus provided the rationale for spending money on economic recovery and for forming alliances, especially military alliances, that would simultaneously encourage open markets and check the spread of Soviet influence.103 As to the specific case of China, American determination to maintain a “free world” of free trade and open markets also explained the basis of Washington’s China policy, concisely summarized in 1949 by Marshall’s successor as secretary of state, Dean Acheson as follows: “The United States . . . has consistently maintained and still maintains those fundamental principles of our foreign policy toward China which include the doctrine of the Open Door, respect for the administrative and territorial integrity of China, and opposition to any foreign domination of China.”104 This policy encapsulated the essence of America’s anti-Communism in China: economic interests. These fundamental principles of American foreign policy toward China had been formulated at the beginning of the twentieth century as the U.S. answer to the so-called “scramble for concessions,” an attempt by various imperialist powers to carve out their own colonial possessions or “spheres of influence” within China. Having come late on the China scene because of its own imperialist conflict elsewhere (in Cuba and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War), and, more importantly, confident of its robust ability to compete favorably on an even playing field with its imperial rivals for the “China market,” the United States had proposed the Open Door policy. The Open Door defended Chinese territorial integrity and rejected domination by any one of the imperialist powers for one primary purpose: to keep the whole country open to trade and economic penetration by all.105 This underlying policy had guided American actions in China throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Postwar antiCommunism in its essence was but the late 1940s expression of America’s ongoing commitment to the Open Door policy. To be sure, at the outbreak of the Cold War, the United States condemned Communist “totalitarianism” and suppression of individual freedoms and rights. But in China, these concerns clearly took a back seat to the economic imperatives of the emerging “pax Americana.” Not only did the United States consistently support the Nationalist government, which, by Washington’s own admission, remained a corrupt and repressive oneparty dictatorship, but it also clearly revealed in the “fundamental principles” of its China policy cited by Acheson that economic interests outweighed any American concern over the democratic nature of the Chinese state—an issue the principles did not even consider. If America’s


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support for Chiang Kai-shek and its early Cold War anti-Communism closed off the potential for an all-party coalition government in China and thus any potential for liberals to emerge as leaders of democratic political reform, such was the necessary sacrifice to the total global strategy. The profound irony for the United States was that this exercise in antiCommunism in China served in fact to strengthen the Communist cause. The CCP seized on the illiberal and antidemocratic manifestations of U.S. anti-Communism in China and demonstrated its ability to join with—and in many cases to lead106—the opposition to Chiang and to Japanese revitalization, thereby contributing to the rising tide of antiAmericanism among the democrats and the masses of Chinese people more generally. But the Communists offered more than just opposition to the Nanjing ruling clique and the United States; they continued to champion the cherished vision of the liberal middle forces for a coalition government that would serve as the vehicle for ushering in the united, peaceful, independent, and democratic “new China.” The United States thus pursued a contradictory, no-win course. Cold war anti-Communism dictated continued support for Chiang Kai-shek, for any reformer or “third force” would have had to come to terms with the CCP, which was far too powerful a political actor in its own right to be ignored. Yet Chiang was becoming increasingly isolated politically as popular discontent with the GMD grew. In the American view, only the liberals could bring about the reform necessary to restore the legitimacy of the Nationalist government. Faced with these political constraints, the United States chose to follow a course of encouraging the middle forces to pressure Chiang to reform, and at the same time continuing to provide him with massive military and economic assistance. As long as Chiang could count on that assistance, however, he could continue to resist any genuine reform. The clear links between American aid and Chiang’s evasion of reform served to alienate the middle forces both from the right-wing leadership of the Guomindang and from the United States as well. The uncertainty of political developments in China coincided with America’s determination in 1947–48 not to allow Communism to gain a foothold in neighboring Japan. The American decision at that time to revive the Japanese economy raised widespread concern and anger among the Chinese that their former enemy might engage in renewed military aggression and economic domination. The reverse course in Japan drove still larger numbers of China’s middle forces into active opposition to America. Some of the middle forces thus leaned to the Communist side merely because to them, the CCP represented the lesser of two evils. But for

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many other democrats, the CCP’s positive programme of New Democracy provided an attractive alternative to what Chiang and the United States had to offer. New Democracy’s political embrace of a multiclass alliance, an alliance given concrete structure in the form of a coalition government, met with ardent support from the middle forces throughout the postwar period. Similarly, New Democracy’s economic commitment to strip wealth from the four big families tied to Chiang’s regime and to provide benefit for both labor and capital attracted genuine support from many who were deeply concerned about the fate of China’s national industry and commerce. Finally, New Democracy’s anti-imperialist determination to free China from foreign control attracted many patriotic activists who had first stood up against Japan and then after the war had come to see American involvement in their country as a major contributing factor to the bloody carnage and dislocations attendant to the civil war. Without this attractive alternative, Chiang’s government may have stumbled along over time until it managed some form of recovery. History is replete with examples of inept, repressive, unpopular regimes that have carried on for long periods in the absence of an organized challenge. As Mao himself observed in one of his more famous and descriptive passages, “Everything reactionary is the same. If you don’t hit it, it won’t fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish of itself.”107 While Secretary of State Acheson may have been correct in his claim that the outcome of the civil war in China was beyond the control of the United States, he was wrong to suggest that the final result was a “decision by default.” America, through its massive aid to Chiang Kai-shek, had indeed tried to control the outcome of the civil war. But that aid fed the appetite of a bankrupt regime that was committed to the military suppression of its primary opponent. Thus, a more complete explanation of the outcome of the civil war must cite factors on both sides. On the one hand, there was a Guomindang that was authoritarian, repressive, and inept, to be sure, but was nevertheless supported in its actions by the United States with massive aid that was utilized for the expansion of an unpopular and disastrous military conflict. On the other hand, there was a Communist Party that developed the organization, activism, military capabilities, and vision that exposed, contributed to, and seized upon the Nationalists’ weaknesses and provided the attractive alternative that ultimately resulted in revolutionary victory. Certain middle forces, such as the Democratic League and later the GMD Revolutionary Committee, chose to cooperate with the CCP based on New Democracy, a revolutionary programme that carefully incorporated


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many of the most urgent demands of the middle forces. Although the Communists came to advocate the exclusion of Guomindang reactionaries from their coalition, this position did not isolate them as did the decision by the other side to exclude the Communists. By late 1948, the vast majority of middle forces all agreed that Chiang and the right-wing leadership of the Nationalist Party had to go. Many intellectuals, repelled by the GMD and inspired by New Democracy’s vision of a “new China,” became revolutionaries. Still other middle forces, though skeptical of the Communists’ ideology and ultimate goals, were nevertheless either impressed with what they heard of the CCP’s practice of clean politics and popular political participation in the “liberated areas” under their control, or were swayed by their strong opposition to government repression and to America’s actions that in their estimation fueled the civil war. Indeed, the major outbreaks of anti-Americanism, whether in response to U.S. military presence (as in the Beiping rape case) or in opposition to American Japan policy, resulted in the further strengthening of the Communist side in the battle for the middle forces. It is no doubt the case that China’s laboring classes, particularly the peasantry, provided the main force in China’s successful new-democratic revolution. It was primarily because of the thorough victories accumulated by the peasant-based People’s Liberation Army, because of land reform, and because of popular government among China’s vast peasant masses that the CCP could seize state power. Nevertheless, the close attention paid by the Communist Party to winning over China’s middle forces during the civil war indicates that they were far from insignificant to the revolution’s success. It was the middle forces who frustrated America’s counterrevolutionary designs by rejecting U.S. attempts to organize them under Chiang Kaishek’s leadership to oppose and isolate the Communists. To the contrary, the political opposition of the middle forces within Chiang’s urban strongholds contributed significantly to the isolation of the Nationalist regime. As more and more cities were liberated by the PLA, the middle forces played a crucial role in urban administration, the expansion of economic production, and the swaying of public opinion. By the fall of 1949, it was clear that a substantial majority of middle forces had been won over by the Communists. Many directly or indirectly joined in the work of crafting China’s New-Democratic revolutionary government. The United States, which less than three years earlier had seen in these very liberals its best hope for China, was left to sort out the blame for its colossal loss.


NOTES

I NTRODUCTION 1. Foreign Relations of the United States, The Far East: China, 1948 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1973), 8:470; hereafter referred to as FRUS. 2. For the consistent attempts by the United States at forming a coalition, see Tang Tsou, America’s Failure in China, 1941–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 409. For the purpose of coalition policy, see Nancy Tucker, Patterns in the Dust (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983) 7. Odd Arne Westad has provided evidence that U.S. policy makers were distancing themselves rhetorically from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vision as early as the spring of 1946 (Cold War and Revolution [New York: Columbia University Press, 1993], 163), but the total abandonment of the policy was not completed until the Marshall Mission ended in failure. 3. The importance to the United States of the CCP’s participation in a coalition government in China was evidenced in all major reports on the subject during both the Hurley and Marshall missions, notwithstanding Truman’s denial of the fact in March of 1948. For examples, see FRUS, 1946, 9:130–32. 4. United States Relations with China: With Special Reference to the Years 1944–1949 (Washington, DC: Office of Public Affairs, 1949), 213; hereafter referred to as China White Paper. 5. Ibid., 216–18. 6. For a thoughtful theoretical discussion of the “liberal” and ”democratic” elements in the thinking and activism of China’s middle forces, see Edmund S. K. Fung, In Search of Chinese Democracy: Civil Opposition in Nationalist China, 1929–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 13–20. 7. The most important individuals in the Four Families included the following: (1) Chiang Kai-shek himself; (2) Song Ziwen (T. V. Soong), multimillionaire, brother of Chiang’s wife, Song Meiling, former governor of the Central Bank of China, former GMD minister of finance, and president of the Nationalist Government’s Executive Yuan; (3) Kong Xiangxi (H. H. Kung), the richest man in China, husband of another Song sister (Song Ailing), former minister of industry and commerce, and, alternating positions with Song Ziwen, also former governor of the Central Bank and former minister of

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9.

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finance; (4) the brothers Chen Guofu (Ch’en Kuo-fu) and Chen Lifu (Ch’en Li-fu), the powerful leaders of the so-called “CC Clique,” the reactionary center of the GMD that organized and controlled the party machine. As will become clear, the Communist Party also recognized the existence of these middle forces. In its Marxist terminology, the party identified the social base of the middle forces as (1) the “petty bourgeoisie” (including students and intellectuals, professionals, and shopkeepers in the cities); (2) the “national bourgeoisie” (industrialists and merchants with no subsidiary function on behalf of foreign capital); and (3) the “enlightened gentry” (reformminded rural elites). See for example Tang Tsou’s assessment of the third force in America’s Failure, 376. See also Lloyd E. Eastman’s conclusion about the democrats in The Abortive Revolution: China under Nationalist Rule, 1927–1937 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 150–80. For an excellent study of this urban resistance, see Parks Coble, Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism, 1931–1937 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard East Asia Center, 1991). See also Fung, In Search, chap. 3; and see Roger B. Jeans, ed., Roads Not Taken: The Struggle of Opposition Parties in Twentieth-Century China (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992). In 1935, Georgi Dimitrov delivered his oft-cited speech to the Communist International (Comintern), the organization representing Communist parties from around the world. The speech signaled the momentous Comintern policy shift from espousing revolution to calling for a “Popular Front against Fascism.” Prior to this official declaration, however, the Chinese Communists had already taken measures to establish a broad united front against Japan. Inspired by the urban resistance that had been led by such middle-force elements as Sun Yat-sen’s widow Song Qingling, the CCP in April of 1934 issued the “Chinese People’s Basic Programme for Fighting Japan” (“Zhongguo renmin dui Ri zuozhan de jiben gangling”), later known as the “Six-Point Programme.” The proposal called for “workers, peasants, soldiers, students and businesspeople” to elect a committee of national defense with governmental authority to coordinate resistance efforts. It also endorsed the creation of an alliance of “all forces opposed to the Japanese imperialists.”(See Liao Gailong, ed., Zhongguo gongchandang lishi da cidian [General dictionary of the history of the Chinese Communist Party] (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dang-xiao chubanshe, 1991), 1:510; see also Mao Zedong, Selected Works (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1969), 1:174n15; hereafter referred to as SW. Of the thirty-eight delegates to the PCC, the GMD sent eight and the CCP sent seven. The Democratic League had nine representatives, the Youth Party five, and there were nine personages with no party affiliation, but who have been generally grouped with the middle forces.

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13. “Personal Statement by the Special Representative of the President (Marshall), January 7, 1947,” Annex 113, China White Paper (Washington, DC: Office of Public Affairs, 1949), 688. 14. See Mao, SW, 4:125n2. 15. For a more detailed discussion of the rape case and the Communist Party’s response, see Joseph K. S. Yick, Making Urban Revolution in China: The CCP-GMD Struggle for Beiping-Tianjin, 1945–49 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995), 96–103. 16. Mao, “The Chiang Kai-shek Government is Besieged by the Whole People,” SW, 4:135. 17. For a fuller discussion of the CCP administration of Kalgan, see Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945–1949 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 333ff. 18. Lu Dingyi, “Duiyu zhanhou guoji xingshizhong jige jiben wenti de jieshi” [Explanation of several basic questions concerning the postwar international situation], in Zhonggong dangshi cankao ziliao [Reference materials on the history of the Chinese Communist Party], vol. 6 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1979), 250; originally published January 2, 1947. 19. For one example of a critique of the “loss of China” argument, see Warren I. Cohen, “Symposium: Rethinking the Lost Chance in China,” Diplomatic History 21, no. 1 (Winter 1997): 71. 20. In addition to the debate over the United States’ “loss of China,” another scholarly debate developed in the late 1960s over the United States’ “lost chance in China.” Here, foreign relations experts such as Warren Cohen and Nancy Tucker argued that U.S. anti-Communism snuffed out an opportunity in 1949–50 for the United States to establish some level of normalized relations with the People’s Republic of China, short of the mutual hostility that in fact characterized the postures of the two countries until the 1970s. As more archival material in both China and Russia became available in the 1980s and 1990s, and as scholars such as Chen Jian and O. Arne Westad moved away from a U.S.-centered view of the situation toward a view emphasizing the agency of the CCP itself, the “lost chance” thesis was seriously challenged and undermined. For an excellent summary of the arguments surrounding the “lost chance” thesis, see the articles by Warren Cohen, Chen Jian, O. Arne Westad, John Garver, and Michael Sheng in Diplomatic History 21, no. 1 (Winter 1997): 71–116. While this book rejects the “loss of China” paradigm, its focus on the years 1947–48 precludes any detailed and direct comment on the “lost chance” debate. The evidence presented here on the activities of the Communist Party during those two years, however, does tend to support the argument that confrontation with “U.S. imperialism” was indeed fundamental to both the thinking and the practice of the CCP in its successful bid for power. In fact, the Chinese Communist analysis targeting U.S. imperialism as the enemy of the world’s peoples, published in January 1947, predated by

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22.

23. 24. 25.

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nine months the similar analysis by the Cominform (Information Bureau of Communist and Workers’ Parties) that reflected Stalin’s position. (See Chapter 2 of this volume). In addition, evidence presented in this study indicates that well before 1949, in fact as early as 1947, the CCP was already clearly “leaning to the side” of the USSR as the cold war contention between the Americans and the Soviets escalated. America’s loss in China should arouse no such debate as did the “loss of China” and the “lost chance in China” arguments: Washington certainly held no celebration in the face of the CCP triumph, and the only fireworks in the capital were the loud recriminations that were directed at those who had been “soft on Communism.” Nevertheless, some of the issues raised in the “lost chance” debate remain relevant for this study. In particular, by focusing on the United States’ loss, the book lays itself open to Chen and Westad’s charge of American-centrism. But that charge, it seems, should not preclude scholars from being “critical of Washington’s management of relations with China” (Chen, “The Myth of America’s Lost Chance in China: A Chinese Perspective Based on New Evidence,” Diplomatic History 21, no. 1 (Winter 1997): 77). This study admittedly focuses on that aspect of the contention between the United States and the CCP, but it attempts simultaneously to elucidate the initiative and agency of Chinese political actors, both Communists and the democratic middle forces, in striving for their own goals, independent of and in relation to the actions of the United States. It seems abundantly clear from the evidence presented here that the United States’ behavior in China profoundly impacted—and was itself profoundly impacted by—the Chinese actors in the revolution, be they Nationalists, Communists, or the middle forces in between. While “leaning to the side” of focusing more on the United States’ loss than on the Communists’ victory, the dynamic interplay of U.S. and Chinese political imperatives remains the story this book sets out to examine. While U.S. policy makers may have been willing to “write off” China itself in 1949, it is clear that two of the United States’ most vexing wars of the twentieth century—the Korean War (1950–53) and the Vietnam War (which grew out of the increasing U.S. support of France in Indochina beginning in the late 1940s and lasted until 1975)—resulted in no small part from Washington’s deep concern that the CCP victory in China had created a base for the spread of Communism throughout Asia. China was not alone in this regard. In the name of anti-Communism, the United States in the early years of the Cold War supported dictators and subverted democratic elections in a number of countries, Iran and Vietnam being just two examples. Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983), 13. Ibid., 14. Ibid., 15.

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26. Ibid., 15–16. 27. Ibid., 16. 28. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu I: The Three Principles of the People (Taipei: China Publishing Company, n.d.), 158. 29. See Article 1 of the “Political Program of the China Democratic League,” in Qin Guosheng and Hu Zhi’an, eds., Zhongguo minzhu dangpai: Lishi, zhenggang, renwu [China’s democratic parties and groups: Histories, political programs, and personages] (Jinan: Shandong renmin chubanshe, 1990), 157. 30. Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian, 1941–1949 [Historical Documents of the China Democratic League, 1941–49] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983–84), 77. 31. Chiang’s proclivity for a military conquest of the Communist Party from the late 1920s onward has been well documented. In 1927, his bloody suppression of Communists in Shanghai and beyond abruptly ended the first United Front that his predecessor in the Nationalist Party, Sun Yat-sen, had established with the CCP. In the 1930s, Chiang chose to mobilize his armies in a Communist “extermination campaign” rather than fight the invading Japanese. His attitude was concisely embodied in his oft-cited quip that the Japanese were a “disease of the skin,” while the Communists were a “disease of the heart” (Theodore H. White and Annalee Jacoby, Thunder out of China [New York: William Sloane Associates, 1946], 129). Even after a second United Front was formed after 1937, Chiang continued to deploy his military units to limit by force of arms the expansion of red base areas and to attempt to enforce an embargo of the CCP’s stronghold in northern Shaanxi Province. Historian Odd Arne Westad has argued that during 1944–45, however, Chiang was inclined to solve the seemingly intractable conflict between his Nationalist Party and the Communists by political means. Westad attributes these efforts to Chiang’s ability during that time to win support from all major powers, especially the United States and the USSR. (Cold War, 170–71) Pressure from the United States and popular opposition to the resumption of civil war also figured into Chiang’s openness to political approaches at the time. But even these political solutions that Chiang embraced called for the submission of the CCP to his rule; furthermore, Chiang continued throughout 1945 to position himself militarily for an armed showdown with the Communists. In 1946, Chiang seized upon his superior military capabilities and launched an all-out assault on the CCP’s forces. The following spring, Chiang called for peace, but his Party’s delegates at the final session of the People’s Political Council in May raised slogans for the “peace movement” that clearly manifested the Nationalist views on how to settle the conflict “politically” as follows: “Come to the aid of the government! Suppress the domestic rebellion! Wipe out the Communist Party!” (“Bangzhu zhengfu! Kanping neiluan! Jiang gongchandang xiaomie!”) Qiu Qianmu, Zhongguo

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33. 34. 35.

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minzhu dangpai shi (History of China’s Democratic Parties and Groups), Xiaoshan: Zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1987, p. 214. In the summer of 1947, Chiang Kai-shek’s friend, Lt. General Albert Wedemeyer, traveled to China at Truman’s request to investigate the current situation and on that basis determine if a new aid package should be delivered to the Nationalist government. Among other findings, Wedemeyer’s report concluded with the observation, “The Generalissimo has never . . . been completely convinced that the Communist problem can be resolved except by force of arms” (China White Paper, Annex 135, p. 772). Odd Arne Westad, “Losses, Chances, and Myths: The United States and the Creation of the Sino-Soviet Alliance,” Diplomatic History 21, no. 1 (Winter 1997), 107–8. Chen Jian, “The Myth of America’s Lost Chance,” 77. FRUS, 1947, 7:11–12. Words attributed to GMD General Cai Tingkai from a conversation held January 31, 1948. See consular report from Gordon L. Burke, consul at Canton, to ambassador in China, Leighton Stuart, February 5, 1948. FRUS, 1948, 7:82.

C HAPTER 1 1. Evidence of Roosevelt’s inclusion of China as one of the world’s “Great Powers” is provided in United States Relations with China (Washington, DC: Division of Publications, Office of Public Affairs, 1949), 37; hereafter referred to as China White Paper. 2. Indeed, the Versailles decision sparked a nationwide anti-imperialist movement, the May Fourth Movement, that spread across China and lasted for several years after the initial protest in 1919. The movement took the form of demonstrations, boycotts, and the spawning of many new social and political organizations—not least of which was the Chinese Communist Party itself. For a full study of this momentous turning point in modern Chinese history, see Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960). 3. The first offer to repudiate the czarist claims was made by Soviet Foreign Commissar Georgy V. Chicherin on July 4, 1918. The renunciation of claims was formalized on September 27, 1920. 4. In his report to the Second Congress of the Communist International (July 19–August 7, 1920), Lenin said, “The unification of the revolutionary proletarians of the advanced capitalist nations with the revolutionary masses of the countries which have no or almost no proletariat, with the oppressed masses of the Eastern colonial countries, this unification will follow on from the present Congress. . . . World Imperialism must fall when the revolutionary impetus of

NOTES

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8.

9.

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the exploited and subjugated workers inside each country . . . unites with the revolutionary pressure of the hundreds of millions of people who previously stood outside history and were only regarded as its object.” Minutes of the Second Congress of the Communist International First Session July 19,1920, http://www.mar xists.org/histor y/international/comintern/2nd -congress/ch01.htm (accessed June 15, 2006). Vladimir I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (New York: International Publishers, 1969), 106–7. Maurice Meisner, Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic (New York: Free Press, 1999), 27. Industrialist Hu Juewen, for example, provided explosives for an underwater mine that was set on March 1, 1932, near the hull of the Japanese flagship Izumo, docked in the Shanghai harbor. The mine exploded but the ship survived the blast. Hu Juewen huiyilu [Memoirs of Hu Juewen] (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1994), 39. In addition to the changing conditions in China, the changing conditions in Europe—in particular, the rise of fascism—was leading the Comintern to embrace in 1935 a united front policy (against fascism) throughout the world. For a discussion of the broad impact of the August 1 Declaration, see Shum Kui-kwong, The Chinese Communists’ Road to Power: The Anti-Japanese United Front, 1935–1945 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988), 29–33. The Seven Gentlemen included lawyers Shen Junru and Shi Liang, journalist Zou Taofen, banker Zhang Naiqi, political scientist Wang Zaoshi, law instructor Sha Qianli, and literacy movement activist Li Gongpu. Although referred to as one of the “Seven Gentlemen,” Shi Liang was a woman. In February 1946, Li Gongpu was wounded by Guomindang special agents in Chongqing. Five months later, along with professor Wen Yiduo, Li would be assassinated in Kunming. Peng Qingxia and Liu Weishu, eds., Zhongguo minzhu dangpai lishi renwu [Historical personages of China’s democratic parties and groups] (Beijing: Beijing yanshan chubanshe, 1992), 252–54. For a lively account of the Xi’an Incident, see Edgar Snow, Red Star over China (New York: Grove Press, 1968), 373–90. An excellent collection of primary sources has been published in Liu Dongshe, ed., Xi’an shibian zilaio congbian [Collected Materials on the Xi’an Incident] (Hong Kong: Yinhe [Silver River] Publishing, 2000). Recent academic research on the subject is compiled in two edited volumes: Li Yunfeng and She Xiaoping, eds., Xi’an shibian shizheng yanjiu [Evidential Research on the Xi’an Incident] (Xi’an: Shaanxi Renmin Chubanshe, 2001); and Dong Jichang, ed., Xi’an shibian yanjiu xinlun [New Perspectives in Research on the Xi’an Incident] (Xi’an: Shaanxi Renmin Chubanshe, 1998). Quoted in Theodore H. White and Annalee Jacoby, Thunder Out of China (New York: William Sloan, 1946), 129.

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13. Steven I. Levine, Anvil of Victory: The Communist Revolution in Manchuria, 1945–1948 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 54. 14. As Ambassador Patrick Hurley described his mission in December 1944, “The defeat of Japan is, of course, the primary objective, but we should all understand that if an agreement is not reached between the two great military establishments of China [Nationalist and Communist], civil war will in all probability ensue.” China White Paper, 73. 15. In this book, because of our focus on 1947–48, we omit full discussion of another primary aim of the Marshall Mission, namely the exclusion of the Soviets from China in the immediate postwar period. Steven I. Levine notes Marshall’s success in achieving this aim. See Levine, Anvil of Victory, 85. 16. Barbara W. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–1945 (New York: Bantam Books, 1971), 2. 17. Ibid., 619. 18. For a detailed description of these events, see Tuchman, Stilwell, 622–50. 19. For a State Department summary of the Hurley Mission, see China White Paper, 59–112. 20. Quoted in China White Paper, 87. 21. China White Paper, 74ff. 22. Ibid., 81. 23. Ibid., 82. 24. A detailed U.S. military map of the conflict in China as of February 1944 includes a notation that “there are no Chinese or Japanese reports of fighting between Central Government [in other words, GMD] and Japanese troops in these provinces [of Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Jiangsu]. There are, on the other hand, continual reports in DOMEI [Japan’s Do-mei Tsu- shinsha or United News Agency] of Japanese operations against Communist forces in these areas.” The notation further points out that the most significant Nationalist government military actions in the region during the preceding six months had been the defection of one major GMD army to the Japanese side and the disintegration of another. (Quoted, with map reproduction, in Larry I. Bland, ed., George C. Marshall’s Mediation Mission to China, December 1945–January 1947 [Lexington, VA: George C. Marshall Foundation], xvi.) Other reports indicate that, by early 1945, 84 percent of the 220,000 Japanese forces in north China were deployed to fight against the CCP’s Eighth Route Army. (Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War: World War II and the Japanese, 1931–1945 [New York: Pantheon Books, 1978], 95.) It is true that throughout most of 1944, the Japanese “Operation ICHIGO” targeted Chinese Nationalist positions in the South and Southwest (where the GMD forces offered little effective resistance). (See Lloyd E. Eastman, “Nationalist China during the Sino-Japanese War,” in The Nationalist Era in China, 1927–1949, ed. Lloyd E. Eastman [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991], 148–51; and Lyman P. Van Slyke, “The Chinese Communist Movement during the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1945,” in Eastman, The

NOTES

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26. 27. 28.

29. 30.

31.

32.

33. 34. 35.

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Nationalist Era, 273–76.) But the point is not that only the Communists fought the Japanese, but rather that in large regions of China, CCP forces fought sufficiently to have felt deserving of the right, along with the Nationalists, to accept the Japanese surrender that the U.S. denied them with MacArthur’s issuance of General Order No. 1. This pro-Nationalist command could hardly have been taken by the Communists as anything other than a direct attack from the American side. Levine, Anvil of Victory, 40. Truman’s speech on December 18, 1946, confirms the reasons offered by Levine for troop deployment. U.S. troops reached a peak strength of 113,000 in early 1946. (“Statement by President Truman on United States Policy toward China, December 18, 1946,” China White Paper, Annex 114, pp. 693–94. China White Paper, 312. Tsou Tang, America’s Failure in China, 1941–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 321. Mao Zedong, “On Peace Negotiations with the Guomindang,” in Selected Works (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1976), 4:49. Selected Works will hereafter be referred to as SW. Mao Zedong, “The Situation and Our Policy after the Victory in the War of Resistance against Japan,” in SW, 4:20–21. These figures were cited in several Shanghai newspapers, including the Dagongbao and the Wenhuibao, in a statement on July 7, 1949, marking the twelfth anniversary of the full-scale Japanese invasion of China. “Fandui Meiguo fu Ri; su kai dui Ri hehui,” [Oppose America’s support of Japan; hurry to open the Japanese peace conference], in Zhongguo fan Mei fu Ri yundong douzheng shi [History of the Chinese struggle opposing America’s support of Japan], ed. Meng Xianzhang (Shanghai: Zhonghua tushu faxing gongsi, 1951), 141. The Communists realized that several of their liberated zones in the South, especially those near Nanjing, would be seen as a threat to Chiang, who planned to return to the city to re-establish the national capital. The CCP therefore proposed to concede eight liberated areas in the negotiations. It also agreed to reduce the size of its armies, commensurate with reductions in Chiang’s forces, so that Nationalist divisions would continue to outnumber Communist divisions in a ratio of roughly six to one. (See Mao Zedong, “On the Chungking Negotiations,” SW, 4:56–57.) Declaration on the Current Situation by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, August 25, 1945. See the summary of this document in Zhou Enlai, Selected Works (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1981), 1:465n381. China White Paper, 117. Mao, “On the Chungking Negotiations,” SW, 4:54–55. In fact, it is not clear which “American sympathizers” Mao was referring to. The context of the statement was that the “broad masses of people,” both in

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38.

39. 40.

41.

42. 43.

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China and abroad, opposed Chiang Kai-shek’s “reactionary” regime. But Mao referred specifically to those “many foreigners, including Americans,” he met in Chongqing, who “sympathize with us.” Certainly, among the Americans Mao encountered during the negotiations were friendly U.S. government employees. (See Han Suyin, The Morning Deluge: Mao Tsetung and the Chinese Revolution, 1893–1954 [Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972], 455, 458.) See Mao’s philosophical essays, “On Contradiction” and “On Practice,” SW, 2:295–347. The directive here evidently referred to the infamous Amerasia Case, in which six Americans, including John Service, formerly the second ranking U.S. diplomatic officer, had collected a number of documents from government sources and therefore came under the surveillance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Office of Strategic Services (OSS, precursor to the CIA) . Service was one of several career diplomats in China who advocated a “flexible” policy toward the CCP, thereby arousing Hurley’s consternation. Hurley purged Chongqing of this group in the spring, but when Service returned to Washington, he continued to work within the State Department to alter the one-sided commitment of Hurley and Truman to Chiang Kai-shek. Service passed on a few unclassified position papers he had written to the editors of the journal Amerasia. He and five others were arrested, but he was soon exonerated. “Junwei guanyu Meiguo dui Hua de fandong zhengce ji wo zhi dui ce de zhibiao” [Directive of the military commission concerning the reactionary American policy toward China and our response to it], in Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji [Selected documents of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee] (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), 15:179 (emphasis added). Article originally published July 7, 1945. For a summary of Atcheson’s position, see China White Paper, 87–92. Hurley strongly rejected the proposals advanced by this document. Barbara Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–1945 (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 598–99. For more complete reports on the Dixie Mission, see David D. Barrett, Dixie Mission: The United States Army Observer Group in Yenan, 1944 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970); and John S. Service, The American Papers: Some Problems in the History of U.S.-China Relations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971). For a discussion of the confrontation between these State Department officials and Ambassador Hurley, see Herbert Feis, The China Tangle: The American Effort in China from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall Mission (New York: Atheneum, 1965), 271–72. China White Paper, 91–92. Chiang’s demand for Communist submission to the Nationalists had been evident for years, but early in the Hurley Mission, it was manifest particularly

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45.

46.

47. 48. 49.

50. 51. 52.

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in the Generalissimo’s response to the Five Point Proposal that Hurley had brokered with the CCP during his trip to Yan’an. Chiang refused to end the one-party rule of the GMD; instead, he drew up a series of his own counterproposals. In his March 1, 1945, policy statement, Chiang called for the convening of a “People’s Congress to inaugurate constitutional government,” but the congress would be “subject to approval by the Guomindang National Congress.” He announced that “upon the inauguration of constitutional government, all political parties will have legal status and enjoy equality,” but he noted that the Communist Party would earn legal recognition only as soon as it agreed “to incorporate its army and local administration in the National Government.” (quoted in China White Paper, 84) The Communists, unsurprisingly, rejected Chiang’s proposals as “deceitful,” and withdrew from the current round of negotiations (China White Paper, 85). Qiu Qianmu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi [History of China’s democratic parties and groups] (Xiangshan, China: Zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1987), 335. For a complete text of the new programme, passed in October 1945, see Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian, 1941–1949 (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983–84), 66–70. For details on the activities of Hu Juewen, see Thomas D. Lutze, “In Search of the ‘National Bourgeoisie’: Hu Juewen and the China Democratic National Construction Association,” paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies National Meeting, Washington, DC, March 2002. Ibid., 142. Ibid., 143–44. These policy considerations were outlined by Mei Dajun (Mei Dajun, interview by author, Shanghai, July 1992). At the end of World War II, Mei served as a CCP underground operative in Shanghai. He was instrumental in setting up another democratic party, the Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy (Zhongguo minzhu cujin hui, or Minjin, for short) and was elected to the Minjin’s Central Committee. In the same interview, Mei explained that before 1949, the CCP had no proscriptions against its members joining the democratic parties and groups. In fact, the practice was often promoted. After 1949, however, the Communist Party changed its policy. From that time onward, members of democratic parties could join the CCP, but not vice versa. Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 144. Ibid., 143. Zhou Enlai, the chief Communist negotiator in Chongqing after Mao returned to Yan’an on October 11, indicated that the question of the governance of the liberated areas was the only point upon which no agreement had been reached with the Nationalists. (China White Paper, 108) Mao himself indicated that another issue still awaited resolution, the nationalization of the armed forces, including the Communist armies (Mao, “On the Chungking

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53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

65. 66. 67.

68. 69.

70.

71.

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Negotiations,” SW, 4:53). The difference between Zhou’s and Mao’s assessments may reflect the fact that while a general agreement on the armed forces had been reached, many details remained to be ironed out. Mao may have felt that those details could prove most thorny—as indeed they turned out to be. China White Paper, 108. Tsou, America’s Failure, 324. Feis, China Tangle, 422–23. Tsou, America’s Failure, 357. Quoted in Levine, Anvil of Victory, 55. Mark A. Stoler, “Why George Marshall? A Biographical Assessment,” in George C. Marshall’s Mediation Mission to China, ed. Larry I. Bland (Lexington, VA: George C. Marshall Foundation, 1997), 3. Quoted in Levine, Anvil of Victory, 75. Ibid. See also Feis, China Tangle, 422. Michael Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 41–42. Joe Moore, Japanese Workers and the Struggle for Power, 1945–1947 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 235ff, 239. Levine, Anvil of Victory, 75. Chiang correctly gauged the situation. He continued to receive aid from the United States throughout Marshall’s Mission—and afterward. Even during an embargo on military shipments to Chiang from mid-August 1946 to June 1947, supplies continued to flow to Chiang, particularly in the form of matériel turned over by evacuating U.S. forces. For an explanation and detailed accounting of this aid, see China White Paper, 354–57 and 940–43. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945, 7:770. “Statement by President Truman on United States Policy toward China, December 15, 1945,” China White Paper, Annex 62, p. 608. Ramon H. Myers, “Frustration, Fortitude, and Friendship: Chiang Kaishek’s Reactions to the Marshall Mission,” in Bland, George C. Marshall’s Mediation, 151. Quoted in Zhou Enlai, Selected Works, 1:461n359. “Zhongyang guanyu Meiguo dui Hua zhengce de biandong he wodang dui ce de zhibiao” [(CCP) Central Committee on the change of America’s China policy and the instructions of our party regarding the policy], in Zhonggong zhongyang, 494–95. Article originally published December 19, 1945. Indeed, Mao justified the surrender of eight liberated areas during the Chongqing Negotiations, specifically in reference to the middle forces, as follows: “Our concession on this point will help frustrate the Guomindang’s plot for civil war and win us the sympathy of the numerous middle elements at home and abroad” (“On the Chungking Negotiations,” SW, 4:56–57). By the end of its 1944 National Conference, the Democratic League included its five founding members, the China Youth Party, the National

NOTES

72.

73. 74. 75. 76.

77.

78.

79. 80.

81. 82.

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Socialist Party, the Chinese National Liberation Action Committee (commonly referred to as the “Third Party”), the Rural Reconstruction Society, and the Vocational Education Association; it also included a sixth member, the National Salvation Association, which had been invited to join the original five organizations in 1942. (Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng jianshi, 1941–1949 [A brief history of the China Democratic League, 1941–1949] (Beijing: Chunyan chubanshe, 1991), 9. Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian, 1941–1949 [Historical documents of the China Democratic League, 1941–1949] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1984), 32. For context, see Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 115. Mao, “On Coalition Government,” SW, 3:232. Ibid., 238. Ibid. Jin Ruonian, Central Committee of the China Democratic League, Beijing, interview with author, July 1992; Mei Dajun, Central Committee of the Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy, interview with author, Shanghai, July 1992; Qiu Renzong, professor, Chinese Academy of Social Science, interview with author, Beijing, February 1992; Zhang Zhuhong, professor, Peking University, interview with author, Beijing, March 1992. Huang’s favorable impressions of Communist governance were shared by the other members of the delegation, including Chu Fucheng, who would be a pivotal figure in the movement launched in 1947 to oppose U.S. support of Japan (see Chapter 4 of this volume). The one notable exception was Fu Sinian, a former leader of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, who, ironically, had at one time praised Mao Zedong’s journalistic endeavors.(Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement, 348n). Though a critic in the People’s Political Council of defects in the Nationalist regime, Fu was unimpressed with the Communists in Yan’an and ultimately chose to throw his support to Chiang Kai-shek, fleeing with the GMD to Taiwan in 1949. (For more on Fu Sinian, see Howard L. Boorman, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Republican China [New York: Columbia University Press, 1968], 2:43–45.) Instructions to Marshall from both President Truman and Secretary of State Byrnes specifically premised the supply of American economic and military aid to Chiang upon his efforts to convene a “national conference of representatives of the major political elements to bring about the unification of China and, concurrently to effect a cessation of hostilities, particularly in north China” (See China White Paper, Annex 61, pp. 605–7). Tsou, America’s Failure, 406. The China Youth Party (CYP) and Democratic League (DL) parted ways as a result of the actions taken at the DL’s National Congress of October 1945, which drastically reduced the CYP influence in the organization. (See Qiu Qianmu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 135, Introduction, n5.) Tsou, America’s Failure, 407. Ibid., 408–9.

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83. “Basis for Military Reorganization and for the Integration of the Communist Forces into the National Army,” FRUS, 1946, 9:295–300. 84. Edwin Moise, Modern China: A History (London: Longman, 1994), 103. 85. Article VI provided that provinces be authorized to maintain a Peace Preservation Corps. The agreement stipulated, however, that the Corps would be limited in any one province to a maximum of fifteen thousand men. (For the complete text of the agreement, see FRUS, 1946, 9:295–300.) 86. Zhou Enlai, “The Past Year’s Negotiations and the Prospects,” Selected Works, 1:286. 87. Zhou Enlai described the CCP’s agreement with the modifications as “imprudent.” Ibid., 287. 88. China White Paper, 144. 89. Ibid. 90. Historian Odd Arne Westad has gone so far as to state that by withdrawing his forces, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin “inadvertently set off a civil war that would last for four years and have consequences beyond what the Soviet dictator had thought possible.” Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946–1950 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 35. While this event indeed marked a crucial moment in the struggle for power in China and an escalation of armed conflict, this study suggests that the major cause of the civil war was Chiang’s determination to subjugate the Communists militarily—as he had attempted to do for most of the previous two decades— coupled with the continuous support he received from the United States in the name of anti-Communism that emboldened him to do so. In another piece, Westad acknowledges the Chiang-U.S. connection as one of two factors (the other being the Mao-USSR connection) that caused the nationwide civil war. See “Could the Chinese Civil War Have Been Avoided? An Exercise in Alternatives,” in Bland, George C. Marshall’s Mediation, 513. 91. Chiang had already stated on April 29, before the Soviet withdrawal, “The Americans should help us prepare for war, if they really wanted to stop the Russians’ ambition for expansion” (Jiang [Chiang] chugao, vol. 6, book 1, p. 126; quoted in Westad, Decisive Encounters, 42.). 92. See Tsou, America’s Failure, 421–27. 93. Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 176. 94. Peng and Liu, eds., Zhongguo minzhu dangpai lishi renwu, 253. 95. Lyman P. Van Slyke, Enemies and Friends: The United Front in Chinese Communist History (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967), 194. 96. For a detailed account of the June 23 events, see Shi Huichun, Zhongguo xuesheng yundongshi, 1945–1949 [History of the Chinese student movement, 1945–1949] (Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1992), 63–69. 97. Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 187. 98. Westad, Decisive Encounters, 35. 99. Cheng Hanchang, Zhongguo tudi zhidu yu tudi gaige ershi shiji qianbanqi [China’s land system and land reform in the first half of the twentieth century]

NOTES

100. 101.

102. 103. 104. 105.

106.

107.

108. 109. 110.

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(Beijing: Zhongguo dangan chubanshe, 1994), 564–69. See also Liu Shaoqi, “Directive on the Land Question,” in Selected Works (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1984), 1:372. Liu, op. cit., 378. In May, June, and July of 1946, the Democratic League suffered from several serious incidents of violent repression in Beiping, in Xi’an, and, worst of all, in Kunming. See statements issued by the League in response to these incidents in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian, 167–210. Mao, “The Truth about ‘Mediation’ and the Future of the Civil War in China,” in SW, 4:109. Tsou, America’s Failure, 426. Mao, “Talk With Anna Louise Strong,” in SW, 4:100. For details of this abortive negotiation, see Roger B. Jeans, “Last Chance for Peace: Zhang Junmai (Carsun Chang) and the Third-Party Mediation in the Chinese Civil War,” in Bland, George C. Marshall’s Mediation, 293–326. This faction was led by Zhang Junmai (Carsun Chang), who, though himself disillusioned with Guomindang rule, nevertheless participated in the National Assembly on the promise from Chiang himself that the constitution emerging from that meeting would be based on a draft written by Chang himself—a document embodying a great deal of personal investment of time and energy. Ibid., 321. Marshall’s own record of his mission reports that not only the CCP, but also “the other minority parties” vehemently criticized the GMD’s unilateral announcement of the convening of the National Assembly. They claimed that Chiang broke an agreement of April 24 that the date for convening the assembly would be “decided by discussion by all parties.” The announcement was “evidence of unilateral and dictatorial action on the part of the Government.” See George C. Marshall, Marshall’s Mission to China, December 1945–January 1947: The Report and Appended Documents (Arlington, VA: University Publications of America, 1976), 313. See the extensive note on the treaty in Mao Zedong, “Greet the New High Tide of the Chinese Revolution,” in SW, 4:136n6. Ibid. Zhou Enlai, “On Marshall’s Statement on Leaving China,” in Selected Works, 1:296. Article originally published January 10, 1947.

C HAPTER 2 1. United States Relations with China, with Special Reference to the Period 1944–1949 (Washington, DC: Division of Publications, Office of Public Affairs, 1949), 313–14; hereafter referred to as China White Paper. 2. Ibid.

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3. On the ineffectiveness of the embargo, see Lyman P. Van Slyke, Introduction to George C. Marshall, Marshall’s Mission to China, December 1945–January 1947: The Report and Appended Documents (Arlington, VA: University Publications of America, 1976), xxvii–xxviii. 4. “Personal Statement by the Special Representative of the President (Marshall), January 7, 1947,” in China White Paper, 686. 5. Ibid., 688. 6. China White Paper, 213. 7. See Thomas D. Lutze, “In Search of the ‘National Bourgeoisie’: Hu Juewen and the China Democratic National Construction Association,” paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies National Meeting, Washington, DC, April 4–7, 2002. 8. Among the most significant of these parties were the China Democratic National Construction Association (Zhonguo minzhu jianguo hui), the Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy (Zhongguo minzhu cujin hui), the September Third Study Society (Jiusan xueshe), the United Society of Comrades Dedicated to the Three People’s Principles (Sanminzhuyi tongzhi lianhe hui), the Chinese Nationalist Party Association for the Promotion of Democracy (Zhongguo guomindang minzhu cujin hui), and the Chinese People’s National Salvation Association (Zhongguo renmin jiuguo hui). For details on these organizations, see Qiu Qianmu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi [History of China’s democratic parties and groups] (Xiaoshan, China: Zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1987), 141–61. 9. Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian, 1941–1949 [Historical documents of the China Democratic League, 1941–1949] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983–84), 77. 10. Ibid., 78–81. 11. Shi Fuliang, “Hewei zhongjianpai?” [What is meant by this “middle group”?], in Zhongguo xiandaishi ziliao xuanji [Document selections from contemporary Chinese history], ed. Jin Dequn and She Jianjun, (Beijing: Renmin daxue chubanshe, 1989), 6:295–98. 12. Ibid. 13. Several figures joined to propose conditions for a cease-fire. Zhang Junmai (Carson Chang) of the Democratic Socialist Party and Luo Longji of the Democratic League were among the signatories. See “Proposals by the Third Party Group, October 1946,” Annex 106, in China White Paper, 675–76. 14. Van Slyke, “Introduction,” in Marshall’s Mission to China, xxv. 15. Zhou Enlai, “Opinions on Our Present Work among the Democratic Parties,” in Selected Works (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1981), 1:316–17. 16. For a full discussion of this issue, see the Introduction in this volume, note 32. 17. “Statement by President Truman on United States Policy Towards China, December 18, 1946,” Annex 114, in China White Paper, 691.

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18. For the relevant text of the PCC resolutions, see “Resolution on the Draft Constitution Adopted by the Political Consultative Conference, January, 1946,” Annex 68, in China White Paper, 619. 19. “Personal Statement,” in China White Paper, 688. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid., 689. 23. Ibid., 687. It is interesting to note, though it may in no way reflect Marshall’s breakdown of liberals and radicals, that one week after Marshall’s final statement was issued, the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service reported disagreements among CCP leaders in Yan’an. According to this report, “Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong), Chu Teh (Zhu De), Ho Lung (He Long), Chen Yi, [and] Liu Po-chen (Liu Bocheng) favor using military means [to] settle political matters, while Chen Chao-yi (Chen Shaoyu, or Wang Ming ), Fang Wen-ping, Wang Chia-chuan (Wang Jiaxiang), Lu Tingyi (Lu Dingyi), Liu Chao-chi (Liu Shaoqi), [and] Li Fu-tsun (Li Fuchun) favor political means [to] seek administrative power.” (FRUS, 1947 [Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1972), 7:15). 24. “Speech by Chou En-lai (Zhou Enlai), January 10, 1947,” Annex 117, in China White Paper, 709. 25. Ibid., 707. 26. Ibid., 707–70. 27. Zhou Enlai, “On Marshall’s Statement on Leaving China,” in Selected Works, 1:296. 28. “Speech by Chou En-lai (Zhou Enlai), January 10, 1947,” Annex 117, in China White Paper, 708. 29. Ibid. 30. In fact, the editorial note accompanying this speech indicates that this address was “delivered at a meeting of representatives of all walks of life in Yan’an to support the nationwide patriotic student movement and commemorate the first anniversary of the Political Consultative Conference. Zhou, Selected Works, 1:293. 31. “Speech by Chou En-lai (Zhou Enlai), January 10, 1947,” Annex 117, in China White Paper, 707. 32. For yet another account of the events surrounding the rape of Shen Chong, see Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945–1949 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 54–55. 33. Clara S. Y. Sun, interview by author, Madison, Wisconsin, April 1991. Ms. Sun, who herself was a student in Beiping during the years after the war, reports that young Chinese women commonly feared sexual harassment and rape at the hands of U.S. GIs. The soldiers patrolled the city in their jeeps, often yelling catcalls at Chinese women as they went by or even stopping to make sexual overtures. One of Ms. Sun’s closest friends was assaulted by an

212

34.

35.

36. 37.

38.

39. 40. 41. 42.

43.

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American and was spared rape only when the soldier grew frustrated with attempting to remove the laced-up undergarments her friend was wearing. Joseph K. S. Yick, Making Urban Revolution in China: The CCP-GMD Struggle for Beiping-Tianjin, 1945–1949 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995), 96. The outrage over the rape was widespread. CCP journalists in Beiping first noted the volatility of the issue and reported to higher levels. Party leaders quickly seized the moment, and student party members began within the first two days of protest to play a coordinating and leading role among students on a number of campuses. (See Zhang Congli, ed., Beijing daxue xuesheng yundong shi, 1919–1949 [History of the student movement at Peking University, 1919–1949] [Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1988], 223–33; see also Yick, Making Urban Revolution, 96–103.) Pepper, Civil War, 54–55. After the assassination of Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo in Kunming, the American consul in the city sent his own car to pick up Fei Xiaotong and other League personages, hustling them out of Yunnan. Later, when the League undertook an investigation of the murders, the consul also provided all the documents at his disposal to help the investigators arrive at the truth of the matter. (Fei Xiaotong, interview with author, Beijing, July 1992; and Jin Ruonian, interview with author, Beijing, July 1992.) The Democratic League’s Committee on the Women’s Movement (Funü yundong weiyuanhui) issued a statement within days of the rape. The statement, entitled “Protest the Atrocity of the American Soldiers” (“Kangyi Meijun baoxing”), was not available to the author. It is possible that this call to action focused more specifically on the rape as an issue of women’s oppression in relation to the U.S. military presence in China, but subsequent DL proclamations on the incident interpreted the rape as symptomatic of the suffering endured by the Chinese because of the American-aided civil war. Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng jianshi, 1941–1949 [A brief history of the China Democratic League, 1941–1949] (Beijing: Qunyan chubanshe, 1991), 91. Ibid., 90–91. Ibid. “Memorandum Entitled ‘Explanation of Several Basic Questions Concerning the Postwar International Situation’ by Lu Ting-yi (Lu Dingyi), Chief of the Department of Information of the Chinese Communist Party,” China White Paper, Annex 118, January 1947, 712–14. (The memorandum was translated from a version published in the Communist paper, Liberation Daily [Jiefang ribao], on January 4 and 5, 1947.) Even as Lu was identifying “American imperialists” as the leading force of antidemocratic reaction around the world, the Soviet Ambassador to China, Appolon A. Petrov, was writing to Stalin that Soviet diplomacy had demonstrated “the possibility for cooperation between the USSR and the AngloAmerican bloc” (Odd Arne Westad, “Could the Chinese Civil War Have

NOTES

44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53.

54.

55. 56. 57. 58.

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Been Avoided? An Exercise in Alternatives,” in Bland, George C. Marshall’s Mediation, 512). This volume does not undertake a close comparison of the similarities and differences between Lu’s memorandum and Zhdanov’s speech. However, such a study, focusing on the historical development in both the Chinese and Soviet Communist Parties of the analysis that American imperialism was the main enemy of the world’s democratic forces, might prove fascinating both from the perspective of the emergence of the Cold War and from the perspective of comparative history of the two Communist Parties. Lu Dingyi, “Duiyu zhanhou guoji xingshi zhong jige jiben wenti de jieji” [Explanation of several basic questions concerning the postwar international situation], in Zhonggong dangshi cankao ziliao [Reference materials on Chinese Communist Party history] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1979), 6:245. (Article originally published January 2, 1947.) Lu, “Duiyu zhanhou,” in Zhonggong dangshi cankao ziliao, 247. Ibid., 251. Mao Zedong, “Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Louise Strong,” in SW (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1969), 4:97–101. Lu, “Duiyu zhanhou,” in Zhonggong dangshi cankao ziliao, 248–49. Ibid., 250. Ibid., 253. Ibid., 256. For a description of the Japanese Communist Party’s postwar view of the United States as a “liberator,” see Robert A. Scalapino, The Japanese Communist Movement, 1920–1966 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 54. Lu, “Duiyu zhanhou,” in Zhonggong dangshi cankao ziliao, 250. Henry Wallace was well known to the Communists. He had been sent to China as an envoy of President Roosevelt in 1944 while he was still vice president of the United States. At Wallace’s bidding, Chiang Kai-shek finally relented on the long-standing American request to send to Yan’an a military observer mission, soon dubbed “the Dixie Mission” (see Chapter 1 in this volume). Wallace returned to the United States, strongly recommending that American pressure be employed to encourage progressive reform on Chiang Kai-shek’s government. For a fascinating account of the CCP’s unique anti-imperialism during the early phases of World War II, see Gunther Stein’s interview with Communist leader Bo Gu (Po Ku) in his book, The Challenge of Red China (New York: Whittlesey House, 1945), 443–46. Mao, “Greet the New High Tide of the Chinese Revolution,” in SW, 4:119. Ibid., 120. Ibid., 121. While Mao’s assertion was not entirely accurate—the Youth Party had once been the dominant force in the Democratic League—it was in fact true that since the end of the war, the right-wing Youth Party had met with strong

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59. 60. 61.

62.

63. 64.

65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

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opposition from most democratic middle forces in China and had withdrawn from the DL in October 1945 when the majority of League members passed resolutions that sharply limited its influence in the organization. See Qiu Qianmu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpaishi, 110ff. Mao, “Greet the New High Tide,” in SW, 4:122. FRUS, 1947, 7:20. These conditions for negotiations were first established by the CCP in a brief message from Dong Biwu (Tung Pi-wu) to Marshall on December 4, 1946 (see China White Paper, Annex 112, p. 685). The Communists clung to these conditions in response to all calls for peace talks over the next two years. Robert Edwin Herzstein, “Henry Luce, George Marshall, and China: The Parting of the Ways in 1946,” in Bland, George C. Marshall’s Mediation, 115. This excellent piece of scholarship provides the basis for the following discussion of Luce and his impact on America’s China policy. Ibid., 116. Ibid., 122, 126–29, 138. Among the important figures with whom Luce maintained personal relations were James V. Forrestal, secretary of the Navy; John J. McCloy, assistant secretary of war, with whom he saw eye-to-eye; and General George C. Marshall, with whom he had a relationship that was sometimes close, sometimes strained. President Truman had no great fondness for Luce, but nevertheless he encouraged Luce to meet with Marshall and John Leighton Stuart on a trip to China in November 1946. Ibid., 117. Chiang’s image was on the cover of Time on no fewer than ten different occasions. Chiang and his wife Song Meiling were named Time’s prestigious “Couple of the Year” for 1937. Time 31, no. 1 (January 3, 1938). Herzstein, “Henry Luce,” in Bland, George C. Marshall’s Mediation, 116–17. Ibid., 118. Ibid. Ibid., 122. Ibid., 123. Ibid. Ibid., 130ff. Ibid., 136–38. Ibid., 137. Ibid., 133. Ibid., 139–40. Ibid., 140–41. Ibid., 142. Time, February 17, 1947, quoted in Herzstein, “Henry Luce,” 142–43. Lu, “Duiyu zhanhou,” in Zhonggong dangshi cankao ziliao, 253–54. Mao first employed the formulation of “two camps” in his report to the CCP Central Committee on December 25, 1947 (see “The Present Situation and Our Tasks,” in SW, 4:172).

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C HAPTER 3 1. United States Relations with China, with Special Reference to the Period 1944–1949 (Washington, DC: Division of Publications, Office of Public Affairs, 1949), 361; hereafter referred to as China White Paper. 2. Ibid., 238. 3. Joseph K. S. Yick, Making Urban Revolution: The CCP-GMD Struggle for Beiping-Tianjin,1945–1949 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995), 105. 4. Ibid., 101. 5. The May Fourth Movement burst out amid widespread outrage among the Chinese over news from the Versailles Peace Conference after World War I. The victorious Great Powers had determined that, rather than returning the former German colony in Shandong Province to China, it would be awarded to Japan. The patriotic demonstrations and boycotts spread from student activists to workers and businesspeople—eventually engulfing much of urban China. Out of this movement, the Chinese Communist Party was born. 6. China White Paper, 238. 7. Ibid. See also Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1969), 4:138–39n; hereafter referred to as SW. 8. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1971), 7:138; hereafter referred to as FRUS. 9. Mao, SW, 4:138n. 10. China White Paper, 238. 11. Mao, “The Chiang Kai-shek Government is Besieged by the Whole People,” in SW, 4:135. 12. Ibid., 135–36. 13. Ibid. 14. China White Paper, 243. 15. Quoted in Qiu Qianmu, Zongguo minzhu dangpai shi [A History of China’s Democratic Parties and Groups] (Xiaoshan, China: Zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1987), 193. 16. FRUS, 1947, 7:77. 17. China White Paper, 244. 18. This entire set of complicated political relationships is detailed in a report from Stuart. FRUS, 1947, 7:77–78. 19. “The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to Secretary Marshall, April 19, 1947,” in China White Paper, Annex 128, p. 745. 20. China White Paper, 245–46. 21. FRUS, 1947, 7:132–33. 22. China White Paper, 246. 23. Ibid., 247. 24. Ibid., 250.

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25. “Radio Broadcast by Chiang Kai-shek, July 7, 1947,” in China White Paper, Annex 131, p. 750. 26. Ibid., 755; emphasis added. 27. Ibid., 753. 28. Ibid., 754. 29. FRUS, 1947, 7:280. 30. Ibid. 31. Official CCP historiography identifies July to September of 1947 as the period of change from the strategic defensive to the counteroffensive “on a national scale.” But PLA units had undertaken widespread offensive operations in the Northeast in early 1947, achieving success with a major offensive in the region in May. See Mao, “The Present Situation,” in SW, 4:57; and China White Paper, 315. 32. Mao, “The Chiang Kai-shek Government is Besieged by the Whole People,” in SW, 4:137. 33. FRUS, 1947, 7:138–40. 34. Mao, “The Chiang Kai-shek Government,” in SW, 4:138. 35. Ibid. 36. Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 181. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. For a brief moment in late 1946, troops of the GMD’s 148th Division, sent to the Northeast to fight the Communists, rebelled and reconstituted themselves as the Army of the China Democratic League (Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng jun). These rebels, led by Pan Shuduan, had originally been mobilized by Yunnan warlord Long Yun, a member of the DL. The League leadership met to debate whether or not to recognize this armed force as its own, and decided ultimately to reaffirm its earlier stance of opposition to violence, party armies, and civil war (Jin Ruonian, DL Central Committee, interview with author, Beijing, 1992). 40. Mao, “Strategy for the Second Year of the War of Liberation,” in SW, 4:143. 41. Ibid., 144–45. 42. Mao, “Manifesto of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army,” in SW, 4:150; emphasis added. 43. The other organizations most commonly mentioned as representative of the “third force” were the Youth Party and the Democratic Socialist Party. In April 1947, Ambassador Stuart described their function in the reorganized National government. The Youth Party represented, in his opinion, “a group of Szechuan (Sichuan) scholar-landlords who have tended in the past to be affiliated with the right wing of the Guomindang.” Stuart continued, “The Social Democratic Party appointees are a group of elderly scholars without important political following in the country.” China White Paper, Annex 128, p. 745. 44. FRUS, 1947, 7:154.

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45. Tang Tsou, America’s Failure in China, 1941–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 406–7. The GMD and CCP each sent eight delegates to the PCC; the League sent nine. 46. FRUS, 1947, 7:23. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid., 97. 49. Ibid., 98. 50. Ibid., 98–99. 51. Ibid., 154–55. 52. Ibid., 31. 53. Ibid., 261. 54. Ibid., 262. 55. Quoted in Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 231. 56. Ibid., 234. 57. FRUS, 1947, 7:333. 58. Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 231. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid.; emphasis added. 61. FRUS, 1947, 7:343. 62. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng Nanfang zongzhibu wei zong meng hengzao Nanjing cuican zhengzhong shengming,” [Solemn declaration of the China Democratic League’s South China General Branch on the harsh wrecking of the General League Headquarters by Nanjing], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983–84), 1:353–54. Article originally published October 29, 1947. 63. Ibid. 64. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng beipo fabiao jiesan gonggao” [The China Democratic League forced to issue public announcement of its disbanding] in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian, 355–56. Article originally published November 6, 1947. 65. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng zhuxi Zhang Lan zai Minmeng zongbu jiesan hou de shengming” [Statement by Democratic League Chairman Zhang Lan in the aftermath of the dissolution of the league’s general offices], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian, 361. 66. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng Nanfang zongzhibu wei minzhu hepingfendou daodi zhengzhong shengming” [Solemn declaration of the China Democratic League’s South China General Branch on struggling to the end for democracy and peace], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian, 362. 67. Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 241. 68. Ibid. 69. “Jiang Jieshi jiesan Minmeng” [Chiang Kai-shek dissolves the Democratic League] Xinhuashe shiping (Commentary of the New China News Agency),

218

70. 71.

72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

89. 90.

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November 5, 1947, in Zhonggong dangshi cankao ziliao (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1979), 6:335. Ibid. Ibid. The medical metaphor in this piece may well be a mocking reference to a comment made by George C. Marshall during the conclusion of the Political Consultative Conference in January 1946 that Chiang Kai-shek needed a “dose of American medicine,” a Bill of Rights, to counter his authoritarian proclivities. (Cited in Robert Edward Herzstein, “Henry Luce, George Marshall, and China: The Parting of the Ways, 1946,” in George C. Marshall and his Mission to China, December 1945 to January 1947, ed. Larry I. Bland (Lexington, VA: George C. Marshall Foundation, 1998), 129. Ibid. Ibid., 336. Quoted in Odd Arne Westad, Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946–1950 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 121. Ibid. Mao, “Manifesto of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army,” in SW, 4:147. Ibid., 150. Ibid., 151. Mao, SW, 4:169. Mao, SW, 4:186–87. Mao, “Speech at the Conference of Cadres in the Shansi-Suiyuan Liberated Area,” in SW, 4:235; emphasis added. Mao, “Present Situation,” in SW, 4:168. Ibid., 170. Ibid., 171. Ibid. Ibid., 168–69. Ibid., 168. Mao, “On the Question of the National Bourgeoisie and the Enlightened Gentry,” in SW, 4:208. We should note that as part of Mao’s attempt to “serve labor,” he declared, “The existence and expansion of capitalism . . . will be restricted from several directions—in the scope of its operation and by tax policy, market prices and labor conditions. . . . Restriction versus opposition to restriction will be the main form of class struggle in the new-democratic state.” (See Mao’s “Report to Second Session of Seventh Central Committee,” in SW, 4:368.) Mao, “Present Situation,” in SW, 4:172. Zhdanov’s speech referred to the “anti-imperialist camp” that was “based on the USSR and the new democracies.” Zhdanov actually interchanged three adjectives to identify the camp led by the Soviet Union: “anti-imperialist,” “anti-fascist,” and “democratic.” Andrei Zhdanov, “Report on the International Situation to the Cominform,” September 22, 1947, http://

NOTES

91. 92. 93. 94. 95.

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www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/04/documents/cominform .html (accessed July 22, 2006). Ibid. Ibid., 173; emphasis added. FRUS, 1947, 7:345. Ibid. Ibid.

C HAPTER 4 1. “Shen Junru zai Minmeng yijie sanzhong quanhui kaimushishang de kaimuce” [Opening speech by Shen Junru at the inaugural meeting of the First Plenary Session of Third Central Executive Committee], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983), 368. Article originally published January 5, 1948. 2. Qiu Qianmu, Zhonguo minzhu dangpaishi [History of China’s democratic parties and groups] (Xiaoshan, China: Zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1987), 263. 3. Quoted in Qiu, Zhonguo minzhu dangpaishi, 263. 4. Ibid., 263–64. 5. Ibid., 264. 6. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng yijie sanzhong quanhui jinji shengming” [Urgent statement of the first Plenary Session of the Third Executive Committee of the China Democratic League], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983), 363–64. Article originally published January 5, 1948. 7. Ibid. 8. “Shen Junru zai Minmeng,” 365–66. 9. Ibid., 368. 10. Ibid., 367. 11. Ibid., 368. 12. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng jinhou zuzhi gongzuo jihua” [Plans for the organizational work of the China Democratic League from this point forward], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983), 370. Article originally published January 5, 1948. 13. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng yijie sanzhong quanhui xuanyan”[Proclamation of the First Plenary Session of the Third Central Executive Committee of the China Democratic League], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983), 375. Article originally published January 19, 1948.

220 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

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Ibid. Ibid., 376. Ibid. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng yijie sanzhong quanhui zhengzhi baogao” [Political report of the First Plenary Session of the Third Central Executive Committee of the China Democratic League], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983), 380–81. Article originally published January 19, 1948. Ibid., 382. Ibid., 394. Ibid., 395. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1972), 7:218–19; hereafter referred to as FRUS. Ibid., 221. United States Relations with China: With Special Reference to the Period 1944–1949 (Washington, DC: Office of Public Affairs, 1949), 268–69; hereafter referred to as China White Paper. For details, see “Report to President Truman by Lieutenant General Albert C. Wedemeyer, U.S. Army,” Annex 135, China White Paper, 764–814. China White Paper, 270. “The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to Secretary Marshall,” April 6, 1948, Annex 152(d), China White Paper, 850. “A Series of Chronicle Summaries by the American Embassy in Nanking (Nanjing) to the Department of State during 1948 on the General Situation,” Annex 166, China White Paper, 908. Article originally published February 17, 1948. China White Paper, 274. Ibid., 909. FRUS, 1947, 7:238. Sun claimed the Soviets were at fault for the civil war, their aid to the CCP causing the breakdown of American mediation efforts. “The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to Secretary Marshall,” April 26, 1948, Annex 152(i), China White Paper, 853. Ibid. “The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to Secretary Marshall,” April 25, 1948, Annex 152(h), China White Paper, 852. “The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to Secretary Marshall,” April 26, 1948, Annex 152(i), China White Paper, 853. Ibid., 854. “The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to Secretary Marshall,” April 27, 1948, Annex 152(j), China White Paper, 855. “The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to Secretary Marshall,” April 29, 1948, Annex 152(l), China White Paper, 857.

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38. FRUS, 1948, 7:216. 39. Ibid., 220. 40. “The Consul General at Shanghai (Cabot) to Secretary Marshall,” April 27, 1948, Annex 152(k), China White Paper, 855–56. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. “Statement Issued by the Ambassador in China (Stuart) upon the Presentation to Congress of the China Aid Bill,” Annex 176, China White Paper, 985–86. 45. Editorial, “Exterminate the Extremists,” Wah Kiu Yat Po, China Press Review, February 21, 1948. China Press Review will hereafter be referred to as CPR. 46. “The Old Fox Cannot Hide His Tail—Comment on Leighton Stuart’s Message,” Huashang bao, CPR, February 21, 1948. 47. FRUS, 1947, 7:25. 48. FRUS, 1948, 7:108. 49. Ibid., 109. 50. Tan Pingshan, “Consolidate the United Front and Smash the Peace Intrigue,” Huashang bao, CPR, March 5–6, 1948. 51. Both men are quoted in “The ‘Peace Plot’ and the ‘Liberal’ Movement,” Huashang bao, CPR, March 14, 1948. 52. FRUS, 1948, 7:147, 187. 53. Huashang bao, CPR, March 18, 1948. 54. Despite the association’s April denial that it ever had active political plans, independent, left-wing, and U.S. government sources all indicated that the association did have just such plans when it announced its formation in midMarch. (For the U.S. assessment, see FRUS, 1948, 7:147.) 55. “Wedemeyer’s Understanding of China,” Kuo Min Jih Pao (Guomin Ribao), CPR, April 23, 1948. 56. Mao, Selected Works (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1969), 4:181–82; hereafter referred to as SW. 57. Ibid., 184. 58. Ibid., 183. 59. Mao, “On the Question of the National Bourgeoisie,” in SW, 4:208. 60. The CCP’s urban economic program under New Democracy was concentrated in a widely propagated sixteen-character slogan: Fazhan shengchan; fanrong jingji; gongsi jiangu; laozi liangli! (Develop production; make the economy prosper; give consideration to both public and private interests; benefit both labor and capital!) For an example of one of the many writings in which this slogan can be found, see Mao Zedong, “Guanyu gongshangye zhengce” [On the policy concerning industry and commerce], Mao Zedong xuanji (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1976), 4:1180. 61. “A Series of Chronicle Summaries by the American Embassy in Nanking (Nanjing) to the Department of State during 1948 on the General Situation,” February 17, 1948, Annex 166, China White Paper, 913.

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62. Several of the “Third Party” conspirators, including Feng and Li, joined in January 1948 to establish the Guomindang Revolutionary Committee. The background and politics of the GMDRC is detailed in Chapter 6. 63. Mao, “Circular on the Situation,” in SW, 4:220–21. 64. Ibid., 221. 65. FRUS, 1948, 7:221. 66. Ibid., 223. 67. China White Paper, 272–73; emphasis added. 68. FRUS, 1948, 7:223. 69. “Editorial from the New China News Agency Entitled: An Old China is Dying, a New China is Marching Ahead,” Annex 152(n), China White Paper, 860. 70. Ibid., 859–60. 71. Ibid., 861. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 74. FRUS, 1948, 7:225. 75. “Editorial from the New China News,” 861. 76. “Patriotic Leaders in Hong Kong Support Communist May Day Call,” Huashang bao, CPR, June 4, 1948. 77. “Editorial from the New China News,” 861.

C HAPTER 5 1. George F. Kennan, Memoirs 1925–1950 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967), 364. 2. Ibid., 359. 3. Ibid., 381. Kennan saw the Philippines, in addition to Japan, as crucial to American security in Asia. 4. Ibid., 373–74. 5. George F. Kennan (“Mr. X”), “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” in America in the Cold War: Twenty Years of Revolution and Response, 1947–1967, ed. Walter LaFeber (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1969), 48. Extensive excerpts from this article, which originally appeared in July 1947, were widely published in such popular magazines as Life and Reader’s Digest. 6. Much of the following material in this chapter has been included in a previously published collection. See Thomas D. Lutze, “America’s Japan Policy and the Defection of Chinese Liberals, 1947–1948,” in George C. Marshall’s Mediation Mission to China, December 1945–January 1947, ed. Larry I. Bland (Lexington, VA: George C. Marshall Foundation, 1998), 461–97. The author wishes to thank Larry Bland for his permission and encouragement to utilize this material in the present volume.

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7. United States Relations with China, with Special Reference to the Period 1944–1949 (Washington, DC: Office of Public Affairs, 1949), 277; hereafter referred to as China White Paper. 8. George Kennan contemptuously referred to the original occupation directives in Japan as reflecting “the love for pretentious generality, the evangelical liberalism, the self-righteous punitive enthusiasm, the pro-Soviet illusions, and the unreal hopes for great power collaboration” that had marked wartime thinking. The 1948 changes (reversals, to many) in the United States’ postwar Japan policy thus represented, in Kennan’s view, the modification of “distortions” imposed by “the discipline of experience.” Kennan, Memoirs, 372. 9. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng yiju erzhong quanhui zhengzhi baogao” [Political report of the First Plenary of the Second Central Executive Committee], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian, 1941–1949 (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983), 281–82. Article originally published January 10, 1947. 10. Lu Dingyi, “Explanation of Several Basic Questions Concerning the Postwar International Situation,” in China White Paper, Annex 118, pp. 716–17. 11. Ibid. 12. For a thorough treatment of the relation of Yoshida to Japanese aggression and reaction, see John Dower, Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878–1954 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979). 13. As one example, members of the wartime imperial “Thought Police” (Tokko- ), who had resigned at the beginning of the Occupation in anticipation of being purged, had reassumed important posts in the Japanese government by 1946. Mark Gayn, “Interview with Tokko- Official,” in Postwar Japan: 1945 to the Present, ed. Jon Livingston, Joe Moore, and Felicia Oldfather (New York: Pantheon Books, 1973), 34. 14. The memoir of Meng’s friend and colleague, Da Yijin, indicate that it was MacArthur’s statement on June 10, 1947, that prompted Meng’s research and subsequent article. MacArthur’s announcement apparently was in accord with the Potsdam Declaration, which had clearly stated that “eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted.” (Article 11). Furthermore, the policy to open Japan to private trade had been a longstanding policy approved by Washington. From the beginning of the Occupation, the United States had supported the opening of Japan to trade, as conditions permitted. (See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, 6:290ff; hereafter referred to as FRUS.) Advance notice that the open trade policy would be announced was provided to U.S. embassy officials more than five months prior to the actual declaration. (See FRUS, 1947, 6:173–74.) It is ironic that Chinese like Meng Xianzhang, who strongly supported the Potsdam Declaration, reacted so negatively to this announcement by SCAP.

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15. All the above issues were raised in Meng’s Dagong bao article, entitled “Ji guan ai xianyuguo yujin de Riben wenti” [Urgency builds to a crescendo on the increasingly pressing Japan question], and summarized by Meng in his edited collection of documents, Zhongguo fan Mei fu Ri yundong douzhengshi [History of the struggles of the Chinese movement in opposition to U.S. support of Japan] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju gufen gongsi, 1951), 10–11. 16. Qiu Qianmu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi [A history of China’s democratic parties and groups] (Xiaoshan, China: Zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1987), 151. 17. This article of August 3, 1947, “Women guanyu dui Riben wenti de yijian,” is included among the documents in Meng’s edited volume, Zhongguo fan Mei fu Ri yundong douzhengshi, 12–16. The arguments that follow in the text are all drawn from that article as representative of the most developed critique of U.S. Japan policy to be found in China as of the summer of 1947. 18. At least one U.S. government observer anticipated precisely such a postwar division of labor in East Asia—and felt no compunctions about it. (See FRUS, 1947, 6:294.) 19. Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 13. 20. It is important to note at this point that the evidence is overwhelming that genuine fears of the revival of Japanese imperialism and militarism prompted the September 3 Study Society to initiate action against U.S.-Japan policy. This seemingly obvious fact has been largely overlooked in analyses of this movement. The complexity of the domestic situation and the intensification of the Cold War during the next year led movement participants and observers to find any number of other explanations for the protests. These explanations will be discussed more fully in the following pages of text. 21. For the text of this article of September 10, 1947 (“Women guanyu dui Ri heyue de zhuzhang”), along with the list of its eighteen signatories, see Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 18–21. 22. Da Yijin, “Zhuiji fan fu Ri yundong de faqi” [Written recollections of the launching of the Movement to Oppose American Support of Japan], in Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 5–6. 23. As a businessman, Chu Fucheng was head of the Shanghai United Silk Reeling Industries Council. As a politician, he had been a member of the Tongmenghui, the precursor to the Guomindang; he had been deputy speaker of the Parliament in Sun Yat-sen’s Canton Government until 1922; and he had been an outspoken proponent of constitutional government in the People’s Political Council (Guomin canzhenghui) during the early years of the war. (See Da Yijin, “Jiusan xueshe jiefangqian zai Shanghai de douzheng” [The pre-liberation struggles of the September 3 Study Society in Shanghai], in Tongzhan gongzuo shiliao xuanji [Selected historical materials on united front work] (Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1985), 4:78ff.; see also Peng Qingxia and Liu Weishu, eds., Zhongguo minzhu dangpai lishi renwu

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25.

26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

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[Historical personages of China’s democratic parties and groups] (Beijing: Beijing yanshan chubanshe, 1992), 563–66. Meng Xianzhang recalled three years later that under the conditions of Guomindang repression after the outlawing of the Democratic League, the activities of the democratic parties and groups had been limited. According to Meng, the democratic forces kept their morale high by forming a united front within the Movement to Oppose American Support of Japan. Movement activists also received encouragement from those who published their articles and opinion pieces. The Dagong bao and several progressive periodicals in Shanghai consistently published articles favorable to the movement, and the Soviet-run media likewise published every article and press release issued by movement activists. (Meng, ed., Zhongguo fan Mei, 27.) Suzanne Pepper has documented the fact that the Guomindang government attempted to silence newspaper opposition during the civil war (Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945–1949 [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978], 142–43), but also points out that newspapers such as the Dagong bao, which enjoyed broad public confidence and represented certain viewpoints within the Guomindang, were spared suppression at the hands of the state (133). It appears that other newspapers that editorialized on U.S.-Japan policy escaped censorship either because they avoided direct criticism of the GMD (or supported the GMD) in their commentaries or because they published their criticisms from the safety of the British colony of Hong Kong, beyond the reach of the Guomindang’s repressive state apparatus. Ibid., 21. “Women dui zhaokai dui Ri heyue yubei huiyi de yijian,” in Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 21–25. A policy proposal of the type called for in the December article was in fact produced and subsequently published on April 1, 1948, even though an “Association on Chinese Policy toward Japan” per se does not appear to have been officially established. The document, entitled “The Policy China Should Adopt to Counter America’s Active Assistance to Japan” (“Zhendui Meiguo jiji zhu Ri Zhongguo yingyou de zhengce”), was signed by 137 educational, cultural, and journalistic leaders in Shanghai, Beiping, and Tianjin, marking the end of the first phase of the Movement to Oppose American Support of Japan. The proposal was formulated as a 6-point program (perhaps as a response to MacArthur’s six-point program for rebuilding Japan) that emphasized democratization and peace as prerequisites for the economic restoration of Japan. (Reproduced in Meng, ed., Zhongguo fan Mei, 27–31.) Chinese Press Review (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General, January 16, 1948); hereafter referred to as CPR. Ibid. This comment likely referred to the “Sino-U.S. Treaty of Commerce” signed on November 2, 1946, and made public two days later. See Chapter 1 for a discussion of this treaty.

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32. CPR, no. 11/48. No specific mention is made in the editorial of the important speech delivered by Army Secretary Kenneth Royall on January 6, 1948, in San Francisco. This speech was one of the clearest statements to date revealing the consensus in the U.S. War and State Departments that the breakup of the zaibatsu should be strictly limited. 33. For a thorough discussion of the Dagong bao, its relation to the Political Science Clique, and Wang Yunsheng’s role as one of the most liberal of the editors, see Pepper, Civil War in China, 436–39. 34. FRUS, 1948, 7:69. 35. Dagong bao, January 26, 1948, 2. Katayama Tetsu, a Socialist, was the surprise winner in the first elections held in Japan after the ratification of the postwar constitution. Katayama, however, represented the right wing of his party. His politics centered on forming a coalition government with conservatives and prewar elites; he agreed to keep the left wing of his own party from assuming cabinet posts, and at the same time spurned overtures for alliance from the Japanese Communist Party. During his brief tenure of less than one year, Katayama proved to be an ineffective leader, demonstrating that real political power still lay outside of the Cabinet. Katayama provided Chinese observers little evidence that fundamental, democratic change had come to Japan. 36. Dagong bao, January 28, 1948, 2. 37. FRUS, 1948, 7:70. 38. Meng did not specify the source of this quotation. 39. Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 38–40. 40. This statement was signed by 137 individuals, including members of the September 3 Study Society. The main themes of the lengthy piece included the contention that Japan had not been demilitarized, that US-Soviet conflict was bringing calamity to East Asia, and that war was the likely result. It called for immediate peace treaty negotiations with Japan, with the following provisions: (1) that Japan’s power to invade be destroyed; (2) that all four powers agree on peace terms; (3) that China be given veto power; (4) that there be no US/British bloc; and, (5) that the restoration of Japan’s economy be delayed until prior establishment of a democratic and peaceful Japanese government. (For a complete text and list of signatories, see Meng, ed., Zhongguo fan Mei, 27–31.) 41. “There Should Be a Limit to Japanese Recovery,” Kuo Min Jih Pao (Guomin ribao), CPR, April 3, 1948. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. For details concerning the Political Science Group’s loss of liberal support, see Pepper, Civil War in China, 439. 45. Ibid., 73. 46. See Michael Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan: The Origins of the Cold War in Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 108.

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47. Quoted in Eleanor Hadley, “The Draper-Johnston Mission and the Reverse Course,” in Livingston, Moore, and Oldfather, Postwar Japan: 1945 to the Present (New York: Pantheon, 1973), 56. 48. “Rehabilitation and Democratization of Japan,” Kuo Min Jih Pao (Guomin ribao), CPR, April 14, 1948. 49. “Oppose the Draper Plan,” Dagong bao, CPR, May 25, 1948. 50. FRUS, 1948, 7:301. 51. Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 5–6. 52. Ibid., 61. 53. Ruan Renze, Gu Jingzhuan, and Bao Shilu, “Shengyuehan daxue xuesheng yundong gaishu” [General narrative of the student movement at St. John’s University], in Jiefang zhanzheng shiqi Shanghai xuesheng yundongshi [History of the Shanghai student movement during the War of Liberation] (Shanghai: Shanghai fanyi chuban gongsi, 1991), 298. 54. Details on movement activities at Fudan are recorded in Fu Wei, “Zai jiangwan tianyeshang qianjin” [At the bend in the stream and over the open field—forge ahead], in Jiefang zhanzheng shiqi, 310–13. 55. For a full reprint of this document and complete list of signatories, see Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 21–25. 56. Fu, “Zai jiangwan tianyeshang qianjin,” 311. 57. The organization was called the “Shanghai Students Association to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan and to Relieve the National Crisis” (Shanghaishi xuesheng fandui Meiguo fuzhi Riben qiangjiu minzu weiji lianhehui) (Ruan, Gu, and Bao, “Shengyuehan daxue xuesheng yundong gaishu,” 279). For details of the bonfire rally, see Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 45–46. 58. “Five Arrested in Student Plot,” The China Post, May 15, 1948, p. 1. 59. Ibid. 60. Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 41–44. 61. Both the May 4 and the December 9 movements were significant student movements against Japanese imperial designs on China. 62. The movement activities at St. John’s are recorded in Ruan, Gu, and Bao, “Shengyuehan daxue xuesheng yundong gaishu,” 297–300. 63. Ibid. 64. Fu, “Zai jiangwan tianyeshang qianjin,” 311. 65. Ibid., 368. A similar examination circulated throughout Shanghai’s universities included such questions as 1. Japanese Fascism has revived; do you think it will result in another Japanese invasion of China? 2. Who are the main supporters of the revival of Japanese aggression? 3. What is the American aim in supporting the revival of Japan? 4. What will be the most important move to check the revival of Japanese aggression? a. To rely on fate;

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b. to organize people all over China for concerted action in opposing American imperialism and demanding strong action by the Chinese government. (Reported in FRUS, 1948, 7:261.) 66. Ibid., 265. 67. See for example, “The Consul General at Shanghai (Cabot) to the Secretary of State,” May 31, 1948, FRUS, 1948, 7:266. 68. Quoted in “American Consul General Denies U.S. Policy in Japan Menace to China,” The China Press, May 1, 1948, p. 12. 69. Quoted in the China White Paper, 276. 70. “The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to Secretary Marshall,” China White Paper, Annex 154, p. 869. 71. Ibid. Secretary of State Marshall was agitated that Stuart’s statement may have conveyed the idea that U.S. aid to China might be withdrawn. (See FRUS, 1948, 7:275.) 72. Ibid. 73. China White Paper, 870–71. 74. FRUS, 1948, 7:328. 75. “Protest against Stuart’s Insult with Action!” CPR, June 5, 1948. 76. Beijing dangshi zhuanti wenxian (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1989), 372. 77. The General Party Branch had received a directive from higher party levels to convene such a forum. The Jiaoda CCP worked through the SSGA to organize the event. Zhuang Xuliang, “Yijiusiqinian dao yijiusibanian Jiaotong daxue de xuesheng yundongshi” [The student movement at Jiaotong University, 1947–1949], in Dangshi ziliao congkan, di’er ji [Collected sources on party history, vol. 2] (Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1983), 61. 78. Ibid., 62. 79. Ibid., 62–63. 80. Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 49–50. 81. Ruan, Gu, and Bao, “Shengyuehan daxue,” 300–301. 82. Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 81. By “professional students,” the mayor meant young people enrolled in college not on their own initiative for the purpose of pursuing academic training but rather as members of the government’s organized political opposition to fan protest and dissent. 83. Ibid. 84. Zhuang, “Yijiusiqinian dao yijiusibanian Jiaotong daxue,” 63–64. 85. Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 82–83. 86. Ibid. 87. FRUS, 1948, 7:280–81. 88. Beijing dangshi zhuanti wenxian (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1989), 374–78. 89. Ibid., 380. 90. FRUS, 1948, 7:310–11.

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91. Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 54–70 passim. 92. Ibid., 97–104. 93. “Local Economists Issue Manifesto on Dumping of Japanese Goods in Far East Markets,” Kung Sheung Yat Po, CPR, May 12, 1948. 94. For an example of CCP support for the boycott, see “A Matter of Vital Importance,” Huashang bao, CPR, May 5, 1948. 95. “Fandui Meiguo fuzhi Riben Shanghai funüjie fabiao shengming” [Published statement by Shanghai women’s circles in opposition to U.S. support of Japan] Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 56–60. This reproduction includes a complete list of signatories. 96. Ibid. 97. Articles protesting the United States’ Japan policy did continue to be published, however. On July 7, 1949, for example, the Dagong bao, Wenhui bao, and other major newspapers printed a statement commemorating the July 7, 1937, invasion of China proper by Japanese troops. This statement opposed U.S. support for Japan and called for a peace treaty. It was signed by 171 people. (For text, see Meng, Zhongguo fan Mei, 141–44.) 98. British-trained sociologist Fei Xiaotong, past chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Democratic League, confirmed in an interview with the author that the liberals not only developed political disagreements with the United States during the civil war, but they also reached an ideological impasse with the United States over precisely the issue of antiCommunism. Fei Xiaotong, interview by the author, Beijing, July 1992. 99. Tsou Tang, America’s Failure in China, 1941–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 499.

C HAPTER 6 1. Among prominent figures who ultimately refused to join in the post-1949 political undertakings of either the Guomindang or the Communist Party was Zhang Junmai, former leader of the Democratic League and later a participant in the first Guomindang-sponsored National Assembly of November 1946 as head of the China Social-Democratic Party. Intellectuals who moved to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek included two well-known leaders of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, Hu Shi and Fu Sinian. 2. “Zhonggong zhongyang fabu jinian ‘Wuyi’ Laodongjie kouhao” [The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party issues slogans in commemoration of “May 1” International Workers Day], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983–84), 419–20. 3. Ibid. 4. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng yu ge minzhu dangpai lingdaoren tongdian quanguo xiangying Zhonggong chou kai xin zhengxie” [Leaders of the China

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5.

6.

7.

8.

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Democratic League and the various democratic parties and groups joint cable on the welcoming by the whole country of the Chinese Communists’ preparations to convene a new Political Consultative Conference], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983–84), 417–18. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng xiangying Zhonggong ‘Wuyi’ haozhao zhi quanguo ge minzhu dangpai ge renmin tuanti ge baoguan ji quanguo tongbao shu” [Statement by the China Democratic League to all democratic parties and groups, all people’s organizations, all news agencies, and compatriots throughout the country, welcoming the Chinese Communists’ ‘May 1st’ Appeal”], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983–84), 431. Pepper, Civil War in China, 90n75. Support for the CCP continued throughout 1948, and not only in Beiping. Pepper included in her study results of a poll conducted at the University of Shanghai late that year, in December, that produced similar results, with 72 percent favoring coalition government (the solution still advocated by the Communists at that time), 15.9 percent calling for the elimination of the CCP, and 3.7 percent supporting a Communist government. United States Relations with China: With Special Reference to the Period 1944–49 (Washington, DC: Office of Public Affairs, 1949), 277; hereafter referred to as China White Paper. “Wait-and-see” describes U.S. policy as manifested in accessible diplomatic correspondence and State Department documents. (Tsou Tang, America’s Failure in China, 1941–1950 [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963], 486.) The CCP at that time, however, claimed to have obtained documentation that the United States was setting up a “Joint Political Organization” (JPO) to fight Communism throughout Asia. Eight functions were to be assigned to the JPO, including the organizing and financing of “center parties and groups” to split and destroy national movements; the development of anti-Communist activities in trade unions and students’, women’s and peasants’ organizations; and the gathering of intelligence. In both Japan and China, secret police were to be employed as part of the JPO network. U.S. ambassadors were to play an active leadership role. The details presented in this “captured report” lend credence to its authenticity. The functions allegedly assigned to the JPO seem to have been consonant with U.S. aims in Asia at the time, and accurately describe contemporary developments known to have taken place in Japan (e.g., Mindo activities in Japanese trade unions). To what extent a JPO operation played a role in U.S. policy in China during the last year of the civil war I have not undertaken to assess for this study. For CCP analysis of this document, see China White Paper, Annex 160, pp. 882–85.

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9. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1971), 7:332; hereafter referred to as FRUS. 10. Qiu Qianmu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi [History of China’s democratic parties and groups] (Xiaoshan, China: Zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1987), 245. 11. Ibid., 246. 12. Ibid., 246–47. See also Song Chun and Liu Zhichao, eds., Minzhu dangpai yu Zhonggong hezuo shi [History of the cooperation between the democratic parties and the Chinese Communist Party] (Shenyang, China: Liaoning daxue chubanshe, 1991), 198–99. 13. See, for example, the positive editorial response to Li’s programme by the Democratic League in the newspaper Guangming bao: “Xiangying Li Jishen dui shiju zhuzhang” [Response to Li Jishen’s proposition on the current political situation], nos. 16, 17, March 18, 1947. 14. Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 247. 15. For a more thorough treatment of He Xiangning’s leadership in the women’s movement of the 1920s, see Christina Gilmartin, Engendering the Chinese Revolution: Radical Women, Communist Politics, and Mass Movements in the 1920s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). 16. Peng Qingjia and Liu Weishu, eds., Zhongguo minzhu dangpai lishi renwu [Historical personages of China’s democratic parties and groups] (Beijing: Yanshan chubanshe, 1992), 18–21. 17. Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 256. 18. An engrossing biography of this fascinating man has been written by James E. Sheridan. See Chinese Warlord: The Career of Feng Yu-hsiang (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966). 19. Peng and Liu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai, 26–29. 20. Ibid., 201. 21. Ibid., 30–31. 22. Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 250. In September 1948, Feng and his daughter were killed in a steamboat explosion on the Black Sea as the family was returning to China in anticipation of the revolution’s victory. Feng’s wife, Li Dequan, survived and was elected to the Central Committee of the Guomindang Revolutionary Committee. 23. Another key figure in the founding of the organization was the famous Tan Pingshan, a former leader of the historic May 4th Movement. 24. Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 258. 25. Ibid., 251. 26. For details, see Peng and Liu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai, 12. 27. Quoted from “Zhongguo Guomindang geming weiyuanhui chengli xuanyan” (Founding Manifesto of the GMDRC) in Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 259. 28. FRUS, 1948, 7:248. 29. Ibid., 249.

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30. Ibid., 250. This scenario is given credence by a document cited by Qiu Qianmu in which the plans for a new government were laid out. The new government was to be headed by Li Jishen with Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong and former GMD General Zhang Xueliang (who kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in 1936 and still remained under house arrest) as deputy heads. (Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 257). 31. FRUS, 1948, 7:249. 32. Quoted in Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 258. 33. Ibid., 259. 34. China White Paper, 279. 35. Ibid., 141–42. 36. Ibid., 280. 37. Tsou Tang, America’s Failure in China, 1941–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 485–86. 38. Ibid. 39. FRUS, 1948, 7: 496. 40. Ibid., 402, 550–51. 41. China White Paper, 286. 42. For the complete text of Dewey’s statement on China, see New York Times, June 26, 1948, p. 1. 43. Quoted in Mao, “On the War Criminal’s Suing for Peace,” in SW (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1969), 4:309. For an alternative translation, see “New Year Message, 1949, of President Chiang Kai-shek,” Annex 167, China White Paper, 920–22. 44. Ibid. 45. “On the War Criminal’s Suing for Peace,” in SW, 4:310. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid., 311. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid., 313. 50. For description of CCP efforts to recruit technical and professional personnel during the drive to take the cities, see China White Paper, Annex 165(h), 901. 51. Mao, SW, 4:299. 52. Ibid., 303. 53. Ibid., 301. 54. Ibid., 302. 55. Ibid., 304. 56. Ibid., 305. 57. Ibid., 306. 58. FRUS, 1948, 7:358–59. 59. Mao, “Statement on the Present Situation,” in SW, vol. 4:318. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid.

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62. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng fabiao dui heping de taidu” [The China Democratic League expresses its attitude toward peace], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi zilaio chubanshe, 1983–84), 501. 63. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng yijie sanzhong quanhui zhengzhi baogao” [Political report of the First Plenary Session of the Third Executive Committee of the China Democratic League], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi zilaio chubanshe, 1983–84), 397. 64. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng shenchi Jiang Jieshi de ‘heping’ yinmou” [The China Democratic League denounces Chiang Kai-shek’s “peace” scheme], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi zilaio chubanshe, 1983–84), 499. 65. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lingdao chengyuan ji gefangmian minzhu renshi fabiao dui shiju yijian”[Leading members of the China Democratic League along with democratic personages from all sides make public their opinion on the current situation], in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi zilaio chubanshe, 1983–84), 506. 66. Ibid., 508. 67. Mao, “On the Kuomintang’s Different Answers to the Question of Responsibility for the War,” in SW, 4:355. 68. China White Paper, 293. 69. Ibid., 303–4. 70. Mao, “Why Do the Badly Split Reactionaries Still Idly Clamor for ‘Total Peace’?” in SW, 4:341. 71. On Fu, see ibid.; on Li, see Mao, “Whither the Nanking Government?” in SW, 4:383. 72. Quoted from an Associated Press dispatch on December 25, 1947, in FRUS, 1948, 7:718. 73. For complete text of the “Agreement on Internal Peace,” see Mao, SW, 4:390–96n1. 74. Mao, “Report to the Second Session of the Seventh Central Committee,” in SW, 4:363–64. 75. Ibid., 372. 76. Ibid., 372–73. 77. China White Paper, III. 78. Ibid., XV. 79. Ibid., XVI. 80. Ibid. 81. Mao, “Cast Away Illusions and Prepare for Struggle,” in SW, 4:429. 82. Ibid. 83. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng fabiao dui Meidi Baipishu chize” [The Chinese Democratic League issues denunciation of U.S. imperialism’s White Paper],

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84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97.

98.

99.

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in Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League] (Beijing: Wenshi zilaio chubanshe, 1983–84), 578–79. Ibid., 578–80. Ibid., 579. Ibid., 579–80. Knight Biggerstaff, “The Nanking Press: April–September 1949,” Far Eastern Survey, March 8, 1950, p. 53. Ibid. Mao, “Why it is Necessary to Study the White Paper,” in SW, 4:442–43. Ibid. Mao, “The Bankruptcy of the Idealist Conception of History,” in SW, 4:451. Qiu, Zhongguo minzhu dangpai shi, 309–11. Ibid. Ibid., 312. Ibid., 313. Ibid., 318–19. The State Department was keenly aware in early 1948 that the earlier postwar success of coalition governments as a tool to deradicalize and neutralize Communist parties, as for example in Italy and France, had been challenged recently by events in Eastern Europe. There, Communists had come to dominate the coalitions and had asserted their leadership, turning the governments into allies of the Soviet Union. As U.S. Consul General in Shanghai John Cabot noted in March, 1948, “The results have proved that where Communists get a finger they are not satisfied until they have seized the whole hand, then gained control of the entire body politic. . . . There have already been too many Mikolajczyk’s [Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, Polish leader] and Masaryk’s [Jan Masaryk, Czech minister of foreign affairs] who have been forced into ‘coalition’ with Communists, then left to fight [a] losing battle” (FRUS, 1948, 7:150). FRUS, 1948, 7:142. While it seems that Truman’s comment was intended to convey the United States’ aversion to Communist participation in any government anywhere, Chinese observers read it to mean that the United States did not want to see Communists in the government of China—or anywhere else in China. In other words, commentators read Truman’s words as a statement of U.S. policy to eliminate the CCP. (See Liu Danian, Meiguo qin Hua shi [The history of American aggression against China] [Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1951], 189–90). FRUS, 1948, 7:221. See also Ambassador Stuart’s summary of the 1948 elections in the National Assembly; the summary concludes with a recommendation to continue efforts to influence Chiang. There is no mention of supporting Li. This recommendation follows immediately after Stuart notes that “Li from choice or necessity will be driven into an understanding with the Communists.” (China White Paper, Annex 152(m), 859.) Similarly, Stuart’s

NOTES

100.

101. 102. 103.

104. 105.

106.

107.

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May 1 analysis of the China situation concludes with the observation, “One element of the Li Tsung-jen (Li Zongren) candidacy which had worried us, has been the possibility that he might seek an accommodation with the Communists.” (China White Paper, Annex 166, p. 911.) Ambassador Stuart remarked in a message to Secretary of State Marshall in February 1948 that there were many in China who, “in innocence of the implications of their actions, actively seek some sort of accommodation with the Communists.” He continued by expressing his hope that the new Aid-toChina package being considered by Congress at that moment “may be able to avoid accommodation with the Communists and proceed under evolutionary processes to a reorganized government evolved from the present divergent forces comprising the Kuomintang (Guomindang).” FRUS, 1948, 7:87–88. Larry I. Bland, “Marshall and the ‘Plan’” Online. http://www.marshall foundation.org/Marshall_Plan_Larry_Bland.html (accessed October 7, 2006). See the Introduction and Chapter 5 for a more detailed discussion of Kennan. These alliances took shape in the form of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), signed by twenty-three countries on New Year’s Day 1948, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), formed in 1949. The former effectively lowered barriers to trade among signatories by extending “most favored nation” status to all, guaranteeing each signartory the same trading rights that any other signatory gained through negotiation with another state. The latter created a military force designed to prevent expansion of the Soviet bloc. The Marshall Plan, launched in 1948, provided the economic assistance from the United States to Western Europe necessary to jump start the economies of that region. China White Paper, IV. The classic study of the background and impetus for the United States’ promotion of the Open Door Policy remains Thomas J. McCormick’s China Market: America’s Quest for Informal Empire, 1893–1901 (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1990). For an excellent, detailed study of CCP organizing and the underground leadership of political movements in the Northern cities of Beiping and Tianjin during the civil war, see, Joseph K. S.Yick, Making Urban Revolution in China: The CCP-GMD Struggle for Beiping-Tianjin, 1945–49 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995). Mao, “The Situation and Our Policy after the Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan,” in SW, 4:19.


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Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League]. Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983–84. Originally published January 10, 1947. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng yu ge minzhu dangpai lingdaoren tongdian quanguo xiangying Zhonggong chou kai xin zhengxie” [Leaders of the China Democratic League and the various democratic parties and groups joint cable on the welcoming by the whole country of the Chinese Communists’ preparations to convene a new Political Consultative Conference]. In Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League]. Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983–84. “Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng zhuxi Zhang Lan zai Minmeng zongbu jiesan hou de shengming” [Statement by Democratic League Chairman Zhang Lan in the aftermath of the dissolution of the league’s general offices]. In Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng lishi wenxian [Historical documents of the China Democratic League]. Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983–84. “Zhongyang guanyu Meiguo dui Hua zhengce de biandong he wodang dui ce de zhibiao” [(CCP) Central Committee on the change of America’s China policy and the instructions of our party regarding the policy]. In Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji [Selected documents of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee], 494–500. Vol. 15. Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991. Originally published December 19, 1945. Zhou Enlai. “On Marshall’s Statement on Leaving China.” Selected Works, 293–99. Vol. 1. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1981. ———. “Opinions on Our Present Work among the Democratic Parties.” Selected Works, 316–20. Vol. 1. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1981. ———. “The Past Year’s Negotiations and the Prospects.” Selected Works, 280–92. Vol. 1. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1981. Zhuang Xuliang. “Yijiusiqinian dao yijiusibanian Jiaotong daxue de xuesheng yundongshi” [The student movement at Jiaotong University, 1947–1949]. In Dangshi ziliao congkan, di’er ji [Collected sources on party history, vol. 2]. Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1983.

I NTERVIEWS The following interviews were conducted by the author. Fei Xiaotong. Chairman, Central Committee of the China Democrative League. Beijing, July 1992. Jin Ruonian. Central Committee of the China Democratic League, former president Student Government, Yunnan University, Kunming. Beijing, July 1992. Mei Dajun. Central Committee of the Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy. Shanghai, July 1992. Qiu Renzong. Student activist at Tsinghua University during the civil war period; Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Science. Beijing, February 1992.

252

WORKS CITED

Shao Hengqiu. Deputy Secretary-General, Chinese People’s Consultative Conference; director, Department of Organization for the Central Committee, Guomindang Revolutionary Committee. Beijing, June 1992. Sun, Clara. Student in Beijing, 1947–48. Madison, WI, April 1991. Zhang Keming. Standing Committee of the Central Committee and founding member, Guomindang Revolutionary Committee; member, National Salvation Association, 1935–36; CCP underground, 1939–49. Beijing, June 1992. Zhang Zhuhong. Student activist at Tsinghua University during the civil war period; professor, Peking University. Beijing, March 1992.

INDEX Acheson, Dean: toward Chiang Kaishek (Jiang Jieshi), 38; and China policy, 177–79, 180, 181, 192; and China White Paper, 177–77; toward middle forces, 179; and Open Door Policy, 190 Anti-American Atrocity Movement, 64–67, 77–78 Anti–Civil War–Anti-Hunger Movement, 15 Anti-Comintern Treaty, 9 Atcheson, George, 29, 30 Bai Chongxi, 111, 114 Barrett, David, 29 Biggerstaff, Knight, 181 Butterworth, W. Walton, 14 Byrnes, James F., 36, 75 Cabot, John: toward Chiang Kai-shek, 1, 14; and coalition government, 114–15; posture toward middle forces, 124; and U.S.-Japan policy, 148–49 Cai Tingkai, 20 CC Clique, 14, 44, 82, 112, 114, 115, 157, 171 Chen Guofu, 44, 82 Chen Jian, 13 Chen Lifu, 44, 82 Chiang Ching-kuo (Jiang Jingguo), 166, 167 Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi): and 1948 National Assembly elections, 111, 113–15; and antiCommunism, 7, 12, 22, 83–84, 187–88; authoritarianism of, 75;

and calls to overthrow, 95, 97, 106, 109, 118, 161, 186; and China White Paper, 178; and Chongqing (Chungking) Negotiations, 26–27, 32; conflict with Joseph Stilwell, 23; corruption of, 6, 75, 123, 159; and democratic reforms, 6–7, 76, 82–84, 84–85, 86; economic policies of, 33; effigy of, 123, 145; and Japanese invasion, 3, 19–20, 25, 26, 27, 162; kidnapping of, 21, 58; launches coup (1927), 42, 161, 162; and military operations, 5, 12, 19, 44, 45, 57, 160; and national reconstruction, 165–66; and oneparty rule, 8, 24, 31–32, 35, 39, 51, 57, 74, 95, 168, 185–86; opposition to, 74, 92, 102, 111, 117, 157, 163, 166, 182–83, 193; peace initiatives, 73, 168–69, 172, 177; posture toward middle forces, 9, 12; presidency of, 1, 2, 17, 112–13; resignation of, 166, 168–69, 175; suppression of Democratic League, 90, 92, 94, 135; and U.S. presidential election (1948), 167–68; U.S. support for, 8, 12–13, 14–15, 22, 24–25, 26, 28–29, 29–31, 35, 37–38, 44, 57, 66, 69, 71, 75–78, 89, 112, 166, 168, 174; and U.S.-Japan policy, 140; and White Terror, 19, 58 Chiang Kai-shek, Madam. See Song Meiling

254

INDEX

China Aid Act, 84, 112, 116–17, 149 China Democratic National Construction Association, 33, 40, 46, 59, 81 China Lobby, 74, 75, 76, 131, 164 China, People’s Republic of, 15–16, 99, 100, 174, 179, 184 China White Paper, 15, 55, 122; CCP and DL campaign against, 178–82 China Youth Party. See Youth Party Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy, 81, 86 Chinese Association for Social and Economic Research, 118–19, 123 Chinese Communist Party (CCP): and anti-Americanism, 5–6, 130, 191, 192; and China White Paper, 179; and Chongqing (Chungking) Negotiations, 26–27, 30, 35–36; and coalition government, 3, 17, 36, 38–39, 40, 81, 95, 96, 97–98, 157–58, 173, 186, 192–93; and democratic groups, 33–34; on dissolution of Democratic League, 93–94; and Dixie Mission, 29–30; formation of, 18–19; and Hurley Mission, 24–26; ideology of, 2; and Japanese invasion, 3, 19–20, 20, 21; and land redistribution, 50–51, 109; and Marshall Mission, 2, 3–5, 41–43, 44–45, 57–58; military operations of, 12, 19, 55–57; and opposition to U.S.-Japan policy, 130, 136–37, 140, 143–44, 150, 190; organization of, 128, 170, 192; and peace initiatives, 168–69, 171–72, 172–73; posture toward Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Party, 51–53, 70, 84–85, 85–86, 186, 191; posture toward the United States, 13,

28–29, 51–52, 62–63, 66–67, 67, 69, 75, 94, 177, 181–82, 186; programme of New Democracy (see New Democracy); and reforms, 84–85; rejects constitution, 81, 168; relations with the middle forces, 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 34, 62, 63–64, 67, 70–72, 75, 87–88, 93–94, 94–95, 99, 102, 115–16, 119, 124–25, 127, 159, 179, 182–84, 185, 186, 192, 193; suppression of, 31–32, 83, 84, 86, 135, 144, 186, 187, 188; and White Terror, 19, 58 Chinese War of Resistance, 9, 22, 33, 60, 133, 146 Chongqing (Chungking) Negotiations, 26–27, 30, 32–36 Chu Fucheng, 135, 137, 143; as delegate to CCP talks 1945 (photo), 41 Chu Yuqing, 146 Churchill, Winston, 68 Clark, Lewis, 115, 121–22, 157 Coalition Government: Chinese Communist Party policy toward, 4–5, 8, 10, 12, 24, 37, 38–40, 41, 61, 66, 79, 87–88, 95–98, 99, 124, 127, 157–58, 164, 168, 172, 173, 185, 186, 192–93; Mao’s rethinking of, 95–98; middle forces demand for, 3, 8, 10, 32, 39–41, 61, 85, 89, 165, 168, 173–74, 191–92; Nationalist Party policy toward, 14, 24, 37, 65, 111, 165, 168, 185, 186; Truman administration, 61, 74, 122, 167, 187; U.S. policy toward, 1–2, 24, 36, 38–39, 41, 50, 61, 63, 74–75, 165, 174, 185, 187 Coalition of Shanghai People’s Organizations, 46

INDEX Comintern. See Communist International Committe of Three, 42 Communist International (Comintern), 18–19 Contemporary Overseas Chinese, 106 Da Yijin, 143 Dagong Bao, 123, 132, 133, 137, 139 Davies, John P., 29, 30 De Gasperi, Alcide, 110 DeGaulle, Charles, 68 Democracy Journal, 46 Democratic League: boycotts National Assembly, 63, 79, 168; and CCP’s Eight-Point Peace Proposal, 173–74; and China White Paper, 179–81; and Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 51, 52, 94–95, 102, 105–6, 105–7, 106–8, 110, 159, 173, 183, 194; and coalition government, 39, 88, 173–74; dissolution of, 91, 92–94, 96, 98, 105, 106, 117, 136; influence of, 60, 75, 88, 89–90, 105; and May 1st (1948) proposal, 158–59; and New Democracy, 180; organization of, 93, 105, 106, 186; and Political Consultative Conference (PCC) resolutions, 41, 42–43, 59–60, 63, 86–87; politics and ideology of, 59, 66–67, 87, 91, 107–10, 158–59; postwar program, 33; and protests, 46, 65; and reorganization of government, 88–89; and Shen Chong rape, 66; suppression by Nationalist Party (GMD), 15, 46, 49, 66, 88, 90–92, 109, 118, 135; and U.S. support of Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalist Party, 108, 109–10, 180; and U.S.-Japan policy, 130, 135, 136, 179–80, 181; and

255

vandalism, 46; violence against, 46, 66 democratic parties and groups: encouraged by Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 33–34. See also China Democratic National Construction Association; Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy; Democratic League; Guomindang Revolutionary Committee; middle forces; September 3 Study Society Democratic Weekly, 49 Democratic-Socialist Party, 52, 57, 71, 81, 83, 89, 91 democrats. See middle forces demonstrations: anti-American, 15, 62, 63, 64–65, 70, 71, 74, 77–78, 77–79, 121, 129–30; anticivil war, 45–46, 85, 90; antiJapanese, 19, 20, 129; anti-Soviet, 45–46; and expulsion of students, 90–91; and military intervention, 150–52; and Versailles treaty, 132–33. See also protests; students Deng Chuming: “On the Scope of New Democracy,” 106–7 Dewey, Thomas, 167–68 Dimitrov, Georgi, 29 Dongnan ribao, 138–39 economic policy: anti-capitalist, 11–12; and Communist policy (see New Democracy); and inflation, 77, 79, 166, 167; and Japanese exports, 132, 133; Nationalist government reform and Gold Yuan, 165–67 editorials opposed to U.S.-Japan policy: Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 136–37; and Democratic League, 136; Nationalist Party (Guomindang), 137–40; September 3 Study Society, 135–36

256

INDEX

Federation of Chinese Democratic Parties, 59 Feng Yuxiang, 109, 119, 160–61 France, 2, 189 Freeman, Fulton, 111 Fu Sinian, 227n1; as delegate to CCP talks 1945 (photo), 41 Fu Zuoyi, 111, 163, 176 Fudan University, 144–45, 146–47 Gao Gang, 184 Germany, 5, 9, 68, 110, 128, 189 Gold Yuan, and economic reform, 166–67, 169 Great Britain, 17, 39, 128, 189 Guo Moruo, 118, 174 Guomin ribao (Nationalist daily), 119, 139 Guomindang Association for the Promotion of Democracy, 160 Guomindang Revolutionary Committee: and anti-American policy, 165; and coalition government, 167; opposition to Chiang, 122, 163–64, 165, 183; organization of, 109, 116, 162, 186 He Xiangning, 161, 162, 163 Herzstein, Richard, 74 Hitler, Adolf, 68 Ho Chi Mihn, 110 Hsin Hua Jih Bao. See Xinhua ribao Hu Juewen, 33 Hu Shi, 112, 123 Huang Yanpei, 33, 34, 184, 185; and book, Yan’an guilai, 40–41; as delegate to CCP talks 1945 (photo), 41 Huashang bao, 117, 118, 124, 136, 149 Hurley, Patrick J., 22, 23, 24, 35. See also Hurley Mission

Hurley Mission, 22–26, 29–31, 30–31, 75, 77, 185, 187. See also United States, policy toward China Inevitable Revolutions (LaFeber), 11 inflation, 77, 79, 166, 167 Italy, 2, 68 Japan: aggression of, 58–59; and Chinese Communist Party, 5; colonial claims, 18; defeat of, 2, 45, 46, 63, 68, 75; democratization of, 108; economics of, 11, 188; invasion of Manchuria, 3, 19–20, 22–23, 27, 28, 38, 58, 83, 161; protests against, 129, 132–33, 141–55, 159; reindustrialization of, 9–10, 13, 15, 33, 130–31, 134, 136, 139; and U.S. containment policy, 128, 129, 130; U.S. occupation of, 6, 9, 39, 68, 128, 180, 188, 189, 191, 193; U.S. postwar policy toward, 130–31, 132–35, 136–40, 141–43, 147–48, 155–56 Japanese Communist Party, 131 Jen Pi-shih (Ren Bishi), 116 Jian Bozan, 119 Kennan, George F., 128–29, 131, 134, 189; Memoirs, 128 Korea, 7, 132 LaFeber, Walter: Inevitable Revolutions, 11 land reforms, 10, 50–51, 109, 116, 119, 163, 169, 170, 173, 174, 193 Lenin, Vladimir I., 18, 50 Li Chunqing, 144–45 Li Dequan, 162, 163, 174 Li Gongpu, 46, 49, 94; as one of the Seven Gentlemen (photo), 21

INDEX Li Jishen: and CCP’s Eight-Point Peace Proposal, 174; and coalition government, 164–65, 167, 184; and Nationalist Party defection, 111, 116, 183; as president of new government, 169; as reformer, 121, 160–61, 162, 163; and Seven-Point Programme, 160–61; willingness to work with Communists, 166 Li Zongren, 84, 111, 119, 187; and 1948 vice-presidential election, 112, 113–15; and CCP’s EightPoint Peace Proposal, 175, 176; and Chiang Kai-shek, 175; and Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 123–24; opposition to Chiang Kai-shek, 186; presidency of, 168, 175–76; as reformer, 121–22, 122–23, 159–60 Liao Zhongkai, 161 liberals. See middle forces Liberty (Hong Kong), 106 Life magazine, 75, 76 Lin Muguang, 146 Liu Shaoqi, 184 Lu Dingyi (Lu Ting-yi), 5, 67–69, 75, 77, 101, 103, 130; “Explanation of Several Basic Questions,” 67–69 Lu Xun, 153 Luce, Claire Boothe, 74, 75, 162 Luce, Henry, 74–77, 162, 163 Ludden, Raymond, 91–92 Luo Longji, 86, 88–89, 91, 106 Ma Hongguei, 111 Ma Xulun, 46, 86, 174, 185; as peace delegate (photo), 48; Zhou Enlai visits in hospital (photo), 48 Ma Yinchu, 153 MacArthur, Douglas, 37, 131, 132, 134, 137, 141–42

257

“Manifesto of the People’s Liberation Army” (Mao Zedong), 96–97 Mao Dun, 119, 174 Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung): ambivalence toward coalition government, 95–97; as CCP chairman, 1, 17, 184; and CCP’s Eight-Point Peace Proposal, 173–74; and China White Paper, 181–82; and Chongqing (Chungking) Negotiations, 26–27, 32, 34; and coalition government, 40–41, 167, 172; correspondence with Joseph Stalin, 96, 97, 98; criticism of, 75; criticism of Chiang Kai-shek’s peace plan, 168–70; denounces Nationalist Party reforms, 84–85; and meetings with democratic activists, 34; opposition to U.S.Japan policy, 144; and peace initiatives, 171–72, 172–73; refuses negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek, 85–86; on regimes, 192; on Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, 28; on student movement, 5, 78–79, 79; U.S. support of Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalist Party, 26, 52, 68, 176, 181–82; vies for middle forces, 15, 70–72, 85, 87–88, 98, 99, 102, 119–21, 176–77, 179. See also Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Marshall, George C.: as ambassador, 1, 14, 36, 37, 41, 55; and corruption of Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalist Party, 62; embrace of coalition government, 38; rejection of coalition government, 77–78, 166; reports to, 122, 149; as secretary of state, 88, 167, 189, 190

258

INDEX

Marshall Mission: ceasefire of, 42–43, 55, 62; Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as minor party, 186; and Democratic League, 108; failure of, 1–2, 6, 51–53; Final Statement, 2, 57–58, 61, 62–64, 69–70, 73; and middle forces, 2, 67, 103, 147, 179, 186; and the Political Consultative Conference, 42–43; rejection of resolutions, 44–46; setbacks to, 110; support for Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalist Party, 38, 41, 53, 58–59, 62–63, 73, 74, 105, 167, 187 Marshall Plan, 110, 128 Marx, Karl, 100 May 1 (International Workers’ Day) Slogans (1948), 158, 165 Melby, John, 88 Meng Xianzhang, 132, 139, 140, 143, 145, 150, 153; “Our Opinion on the Japan Question,” 133–35 middle forces: alliance with Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 12, 124–25, 130, 192, 193; antiAmericanism, 129–30; and antiCommunism, 8–10; anti-Japanese demonstrations, 58; antipathy toward Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), 86; and CCP’s EightPoint Peace Proposal, 173–74, 183; centrality to Communist cause, 98, 99, 102, 120, 176–77; centrist position of, 52–53, 59, 60–61, 117; and coalition government, 8, 39–41; cooperation with CCP administration, 5; demands to end civil war, 120; economic policy of, 59–60; editorials by, 117–18; ideology of, 2–3, 59; influence of, 3, 7, 60–61, 119; and Marshall Mission, 3–5, 41, 60; and

national reconstruction, 166; negotiations with Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 183–84; and New Democracy, 184, 191–92, 192; opposition to U.S.-Japan policy, 9–10, 13; and Political Consultative Conference, 3–4, 45–46; posture of United States toward, 6–7, 8; and rural violence, 50; and students, 103; and U.S. support for Chiang Kaishek, 66–67, 173–74, 177, 191–92, 193; and U.S.-Japan policy, 192. See also China Democratic National Construction Association; Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy; Democratic League; Guomindang Revolutionary Committee; September 3 Study Society Minzhu (The Democratic Weekly), 153 Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan, 129–56, 159 National Assembly, 15, 53, 57, 62, 63, 69, 71, 79, 123–24, 127, 163, 168 national reconstruction, 166–67 Nationalist Party (Guomindang): administration, 128; and anticommunism, 135, 141, 156; arrest of Seven Gentlemen, 20–21; arrests demonstrators, 46, 49; authoritarianism of, 2, 8, 39, 51–52, 107, 124, 192; brutality of, 66, 86, 91; and China White Paper, 178; and Chongqing (Chungking) Negotiations, 26–27, 34–35; and coalition government, 30–31, 31–32, 37, 38, 60–61; corruption of, 2, 62, 75, 86; and demonstrations, 5, 58, 78, 83, 129, 153–54, 155; and Draper report, 142;

INDEX economic reform, 166–67; and elections, 111–15; escalation of civil war, 52–53; factions within, 82, 105, 111, 113–15, 116, 122, 124, 160–61, 163–64, 165, 175, 183 (see also CC Clique; Political Science Clique; Whampoa Military Clique); failure of, 14; formation of, 17–18; and human rights, 58; and Hurley Mission, 24–26, 30–31; ideology of, 2–3; and Japanese invasion, 3, 19–20, 22–23, 23, 27; and Marshall Mission, 2, 3–5, 43–45, 57–58; and military campaigns, 5, 19–20, 55, 58, 87; and National Assembly, 4, 15, 52–53, 57, 111; national reconstruction, 166–67; and Open Door Policy, 7–8; and peace initiatives, 171; and Political Consultative Conference, 3–4; posture toward the Communist Party, 108, 134, 164; posture toward middle forces, 6–7, 15, 49, 57, 58, 75, 90, 91–92, 92, 93, 94, 95, 156, 157, 179, 193; public opinion of, 6, 79, 143; and reforms, 82–83, 159, 164, 168; suppress opposition through military means, 12; U.S. support for, 1–2, 13, 68, 74, 127, 168, 192 (see also United States, policy toward China); and U.S.-Japan policy, 137–39, 140–41. See also Chiang Kai-shek New China Daily, 46 New Democracy, 8, 15, 39–40, 85, 127, 180, 184, 186, 190–92, 192 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 128 Open Door Policy. See United States, policy toward China

259

Peking University, 5 Peng Zemin, 174 People’s Liberation Army (PLA): military campaigns, 121, 141, 167, 170, 176, 183, 193; shift in operations, 84, 87–88, 97 People’s Political Council (Guomin canzheng hui), 40, 58 People’s Republic of China, 15–16, 172, 177, 182 Political Consultative Conference (January 1946): and Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 3; and Hurley mediation, 24, 32; and middle forces, 3–4; and Nationalistic Party, 3, 61, 135; participation of Democratic League, 88, 106, 135; resolutions of, 42–43, 51 Political Consultative Conference (September 1949), 184–85; preparatory work, 182–84 Political Science Clique, 82, 116, 123, 137, 142; opposition to U.S.Japan policy, 140 protests: anti-American, 5, 15, 64–65, 70, 74, 77–79, 123, 148–49, 168–69; anti-Japanese, 19, 20; by merchants and industrialists, 152–53; opposition to U.S.-Japan policy, 141–43, 154–55; opposition to U.S.-Japan policy, from students, 129, 132–33, 143–44, 145–47, 148–54, 159; for peace (June 1946), 46, 49; and PPC resolutions, 45–46; by women’s organizations, 153–55. See also Anti-American Atrocity Movement; Anti–Civil War–AntiHunger Movement; Movement to Oppose U.S. Support of Japan; Stuart, John Leighton; students; Xiaguan Atrocity Ramadier, Paul, 110

260

INDEX

rape, Shen Chong by U.S. soldiers. See Anti-American Atrocity Movement; Shen Chong Ren Bishi, 116 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 17, 128, 136 Roosevelt administration: posture toward Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalist Party, 23–24, 31, 32 Royall, Kenneth, 136–37 September 3 Study Society: formation of, 132–33; opposition to U.S.Japan policy, 81, 133–36, 137, 140, 143, 145; rejects Nationalistic party constitution, 81 Service, John S., 29, 30 Seven Gentlemen, 20–23, 33, 153 Shen Chong, 5, 64–65, 66 Shen Junru: and CCP’s Eight-Point Peace Proposal, 174; and Chongqing (Chungking) Negotiations, 33; evacuation of, 183; named Chief Justice of Supreme People’s Court, 185; as one of the Seven Gentlemen (photo), 21; and Political Consultative Conferences, 86, 184; as reformer, 91, 93, 108–9, 118, 135 Shi Fuliang, 33, 46, 59–60, 174 Shi Liang, 153, 155; as one of the Seven Gentlement (photo), 21 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, 28 Sino-U.S. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation, 53, 169 Socialism, postponement of, 60 Song Meiling, 74 Song Qingling, 161–62, 163, 184 Song Ziwen (T. V. Soong), 82, 122, 167 Soong Mei-ling, 74 Soviet Union (USSR): appeals to by Sun Yat-sen, 18, 165; and border

security, 28; economics of, 12, 57; influence of, 17, 50, 128, 186; and Manchuria invasion, 28, 43, 49–50, 50; and middle forces, 101, 108, 179; and October Revolution, 106; posture toward Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 26, 30, 37, 49, 75, 89, 96, 101, 115, 121, 174, 178, 185; posture toward Nationalists (GMD), 33, 45, 175; posture toward United States, 35, 36, 57, 67, 68, 74, 134, 139, 180, 187, 188; and Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, 17, 28, 38; and student demonstrations, 150; and unification of China, 35; and U.S. containment policy, 1, 28, 131, 138; and U.S.-Japan policy, 9, 109, 110, 119, 138 St. John’s University: and anti-U.S.Japan protests, 144, 145–46, 148, 152; and Cabot’s speech to defend U.S. policy, 148–49 Stalin, Joseph: correspondence with Mao Zedong, 96, 97; occupation of Manchuria, 49–50 Stilwell, Joseph, 23, 24, 29, 30, 74 Strike, Clifford, 142 Stuart, John Leighton: and American imperialism, 103; and China Aid Act, 116–17, 149; and civil war, 108; and Democratic League, 88, 90, 91–92, 102–4, 110–11; and Draper report, 142; and middle forces, 6, 103, 179; and Nationalist Party reforms, 82–83, 84, 111, 114, 165; and peace talks, 72–73, 118, 119; and student protests, 78, 148–49, 168–69; and support for reactionaries, 186; and U.S. military involvement, 76–77; and U.S.-Japan policy, 148–49,

INDEX 149–50, 155. See also United States, policy toward China students: anti-American demonstrations, 64–65, 70, 74, 77–79, 123; anti-civil war demonstrations, 85, 86, 90; antiJapanese demonstrations, 20, 129; and CC Clique, 82; and Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 92, 120, 159, 179; and Democratic League, 88; and demonstrations, 64–65; expelled for demonstration, 90–91; and May Fourth Movement, 132–33; and middle forces, 115, 116–25, 179; nationalism of, 103; opposition to U.S.-Japan policy, 129, 132, 143–44, 145–47, 148–54, 159; political opinion of, 84; resistance to Nationalist party, 5, 83, 155; Three People’s Principles Youth Corps, 45–46, 85 Sun Ke (Sun Fo), 82, 113–14 Sun Yat-sen: appeals to Soviet Union, 18, 165, 180; death of, 19; formation of Nationalist Party, 17–18; limited economic policy, 11; Three Great Policies, 165; Three People’s Principles, 10, 18, 163, 164, 165 Tan Pingshan, 174, 183 Third Force. See middle forces Third Party Group, 52, 60 Third Party movement, 111, 113, 117 Three People’s Principles Youth Corps, 45–46, 85 Time, 74, 75, 76 Truman, Harry S.: anti-Communism, 128–29, 132, 166, 187; presidency of, 75, 77; victory over Dewey, 167 Truman administration: antiCommunism, 178–79, 189; and coalition government, 1, 36,

261 38–39, 61, 72, 73, 122, 166, 187; and coalition government, rejection of, 74–75, 75, 166; and containment policy, 189; disengagement of, 167; and Marshall Mission, 2, 70, 73; posture toward Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalist Party, 38–39, 61, 74, 75, 76, 168, 176, 178; posture toward Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 35, 176; posture toward Guomindang Revolutionary Committee, 13; posture toward middle forces, 179; and Roosevelt administration, 32; and totalitarianism, 128; and Truman Doctrine, 73, 77, 112; and U.S.Japan policy, 148

United States: anti-Communism, 122–23, 134, 155; Central America relations, 11, 12; occupation of Japan, 37; and postwar Japan policy, 9, 13, 130–31, 132–35, 136–40, 141–42, 147–49, 188, 190; and Soviet Union, 35, 36, 57, 67, 68, 74, 134, 139, 180, 187, 188, 189–90 United States, policy toward China: and anti-Communism, 11–13, 74, 128–30, 188–89, 190–91; and China Aid Act, 84, 112, 116–17, 149; and China White Paper, 15, 55, 122, 178–82; and coalition government, 31–32, 36, 40, 41, 74–75, 164–66, 185, 187; and Democratic League, 91–92, 93, 108; and Democratic Socialist Party, 89–90; during Dixie Mission, 29–30; failure of, 31–32, 185–87; during Hurley Mission,

262

INDEX

United States, policy toward China (continued) 6, 22, 24–26; imperialism of, 68–70; during Marshall Mission, 1–2, 3–5, 6, 22, 110; toward middle forces, 6–7, 34, 127, 129–30, 179, 191, 193; new policy announced in 1947, 1–2, 4, 15, 16; Open Door Policy, 7–8, 190; policy under Franklin Roosevelt, 30–31, 32; policy under Harry Truman (see Truman administration); posture toward Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalist Party, 6–7, 14–15, 23–24, 25–26, 35, 37–39, 57, 61, 66, 84, 89–90, 94, 106, 110, 118, 123, 127, 156, 187–88, 190, 191, 192; posture toward Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 61, 159–60, 166, 171; posture toward Li Jishen, 164–66; posture toward Li Zongren, 120–23, 175–76; Sino-U.S. Treaty, 53, 169; urges peace talks, 118. See also Chiang Kai-shek; Chinese Communist Party (CCP); Japan; Nationalist Party U.S. marines, 5, 57 USSR. See Soviet Union Vietnam, 7, 23, 110 Wallace, Henry, 69 Wan Meizi, 153 Wang Yunsheng, 137–38, 140 War of Resistance (China), 9, 22, 33, 60, 133, 146 Wedemeyer, Albert, 74, 108, 112 Wellington Koo, 53 Wen Yiduo, 49, 94 Weng Wenhao, 166 West Germany, 110

Westad, Odd Arne, 13 Whampoa Military Clique, 82, 112, 122, 157 White Paper, 15, 55, 122, 178–82 White Terror, 19, 58 Wu Guozhen, 150–52 Xiaguan Atrocity, 46, 49 Xinhua ribao (Hsin Hua Jih Pao [New China Daily]), 181 Xu Deheng, 132 Xu Guangping, 153, 155, 174 Yalta Conference, 28 Yan Xishan, 111 Yan’an guilai (To Yan’an and Back [Huang Yanpei]), 40 Yang Hucheng, 21–22 Youth Party, 42, 52, 57, 63, 71, 81, 83, 89, 91 Zhang Bojun, 42, 86, 91, 93, 174, 183 Zhang Lan, 33, 92–93, 106, 184 Zhang Naiqi, 33, 34, 46, 174; as one of the Seven Gentlemen (photo), 21 Zhang Qun, 42, 82, 91 Zhang Xueliang, 21–22 Zhdanov, Andrei, 67, 101 Zhongyang ribao (The Central Daily), 152 Zhou Enlai: on Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalist Party, 117; and Chongqing (Chungking) Negotiations, 34; and coalition government, 164; and Marshall Mission, 62–64, 66; and middle forces, 34, 62, 70, 116; and Political Consultative Conference resolutions, 43; writings of, 15 Zhou Xinmin, 93 Zhu De, 184

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