Chinese Revolution


The Chinese revolution began when revolutionaries overthrew the last of the Manchu emperors. The revolutionaries believed that the Chinese had lost the mandate of heaven, and the ability to provide proper leadership for China. Dr. Sun Yat-sen had been an influential figure in earlier revolutions, and he returned to China to become their first president. However, he served as president for only a short while before the military leader claimed leadership of China. He created an army to help gain back control of China. The leader of this army was Chiang Kai-shek. He led his army on a victorious march. His group was soon powerful enough to proclaim a new government. This march of Chiang's helped power strengthen his revolutionary cause. However, he soon faced opposition with Mao Tse-tung and the communist party. So far, steps one and three have been met in the revolutionary cycle.

Mao Tse-tung developed a highly-disciplined guerrilla war band. They were also told to be very nice to the peasants, and not to take anything from them. this helped attract many of the peasants to Mao's cause. At the same time, Chiang's nationalist army was suffering from low morale, and they accomplished very little for the people during their period of Chinese governmental control. Their moderate reform attempted to restore many rights to China, but internal corruption destroyed many of their accomplishments. The counter-revolutionary communist forces soon came to seize power. They easily defeated the nationalist forces led by Chiang, and established their communist government. (Chiang left, and set up his headquarters at Taiwan.) Mao then proclaimed China to be the People's Republic of China, and created a people's congress, and other important democratic organizations; however, he was more or less the dictator. He then initiated a series of reforms to help keep his hold on the quasi-dictatorship, and to increase the standard of living in China. On of his first plans was the Great Leap Forward, in which Mao divided the farm land into communes which multiple families worked. He also set out to expand the industries, by set up many small industrial plants around the country. He also attempted to emphasize the importance of peasants and workers as being some of the highest ranking people in society, instead of the scholars which had traditionally been the highest ranking. Soon, however, the communist party split into rival factions. To help strengthen the government, he launched the Cultural Revolution in China. This period was similar to the reign of terror found in other revolutions. Mao's Red Guard heaped slanderous saying upon people that were against Mao, thus forcing them out of their jobs. Soon violence erupted in the country, but the public soon tired of it, and the Cultural Revolution came to an end.

Although the revolutionary steps occurred in a nonstandard order during the chinese revolution, the majority of the steps occurred during this revolution.