Revolution and Civil War in Early 20th Century China

[Music] [Music] at the beginning of the 20th century China looked much the same as it had for hundreds of [Music] years the country was still ruled by an emperor men wore their hair in Long cues as a sign of subservience to the ruling Dynasty in the old days barbers carried all their stuff on a shoulder pole and they worked in the street if a bobber saw a person who had no queue he could report him and if he did so the person could be beheaded the saying was keep your hair or lose your head beneath the traditional appearance there was growing discontent with Imperial rule in 1911 a military re spread around the country and the emperor was [Music] overthrown men cut off their cues in a symbolic gesture of [Music] Revolution sometimes at The City Gate I saw people with big scissors whenever they saw someone with a queue they cut it off I saw people crying saying now they say we are revolutionaries what are we supposed to to do the cutting of qes was only the beginning of the Revolution the Republic of China was declared the country was soon caught up in an ideological [Music] battle two men led the struggle Jang kek and Malong the conflict transformed World politics for in 1949 China became what it is today the largest communist state on Earth this is the story of China in [Applause] [Music] [Music] Revolution in the early years of the Republic the central government was weak and ineffective dozens of military commanders called Warlords moved into the political vacuum in the early days of the Republic the Warlords fought each other when I was a child in wangi Province I saw so many battles you can&#39;t imagine how many battles were fought lots of people were so scared they just went and HD when Warlords got into a fight people&#39;s lives were completely devastated the Warlords were a diverse group The Warlord of Manchuria was a major figure in National politics the Opium warlord made a fortune growing poppies the Christian General was said to baptize his troops with a fire hose many Warlords were landlords they were often supported by a certain foreign power in the early years of the Republic China was torn apart by foreign powers for instance wangi and guangong provinces were under the influence of England and yunan of France since the 19th century England France Germany the United States and Japan had traded with China they based their interests in the major ports around the country [Music] most foreigners lived in special areas called concessions which they controlled with their own local [Music] governments we didn&#39;t have the term imperialism the term came later we called them foreign Devils they were devil to us why did we hate foreigners we hated any Foreigner any foreign country that wanted to divide up China it was called divide up then not invade they wanted to divide up China just like cutting a melon into pieces people used to say now you want to divide up our country you foreign Devils you&#39;re bastards in May 1919 for the first time Chinese took to the streets to Pro protest this dividing up of their country they saw that the problems of imperialism and Warlords had pushed China to the verge of collapse the demonstration sparked a vocal nationalism and an intense search for political Solutions one of the few political leaders addressing these problems was sunat sen sun was the leader of a coalition group called the Nationalist party he was a charismatic man whose speeches attracted men to his cause Sun knew that the first thing he needed was an Army to defeat the Warlords and unite the country he appealed to Western governments for money for his cause at the time none of the imperialist countries wanted to help us only the Soviet Union wanted to help us the Soviet Union had no friends in Asia so they had to work with us friend England and the other countries didn&#39;t want us to be United it appeared the Soviet Union did want to help us China had to be United so of course we cooperated with them one condition of Soviet help was that the Nationalist party allow members of the newly formed Chinese Communist party to join son agreed and in 1924 the Soviets helped him set up a military academy just outside Canton the W POA Academy quickly became a magnet for patriotic youth from all over China some were nationalists some were Communists some were not affiliated with any party they trained for a military campaign that would one day unite the country the Northern Expedition son appointed his Protege Janai Sheek commander of the academy Jang was a professional Soldier like many of his generation he had attended military school in Japan he had worked with sun for over a decade jang&#39;s son remembers what his father and sonen talked about although I wasn&#39;t usually included in their day-to-day conversations there were times when they were walking having tea when I heard them talking about National Affairs and when they talked about National Affairs they were very serious very enthusiastic they wanted to build up China because in the East we had under autocracy for too long Jang was the commander of all the cadets and of the Academy&#39;s staff many of China&#39;s Future Leaders were under his command one of them was a young Communist Party member Jo and Li Joe was the director of the political education department under his Direction the cadets watched and performed plays with simple political messages with without Revolution there was no hope for this country so political education was given on the front songs played quite a big role the song goes like [Music] this as his army trained son and his wife Sun Chingling sailed to Beijing to negotiate with the city&#39;s warlord but son was ill with cancer he died soon after arriving in Beijing on March 12th [Music] 1925 in death son was revered as the father of the Chinese [Music] Republic there was no one of his stature to take over the leadership and a struggle for power in the party [Music] began Jang kek emerged the Victor in June 1926 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the northern Expedition the campaign to unite the country a month later the young Army set [Music] out full of patriotic enthusiasm they won Victory after victory in just 6 months they defeated 34 Warlords and they swept up to Central China all along the way the people welcomed us for example they would boil water and cook sweet potatoes by the side of the road where our troops were passing they would say Brothers come and eat and drink help [Music] yourselves the Army was well disciplined then and so the soldiers and the officers they always paid for whatever they ate and drank When the Northern Expedition Army reached our region they held Mass rallies everybody went at the rallies speakers talked about the cooperation between the nationalists and the Communists they called for the defeat of the northern Warlords and the imperialists and they asked peasants not to pay land rent and debts I didn&#39;t know much about revolutions then I didn&#39;t know a thing about communism or opposing imperialism but it seemed like a good idea to fight exploitation and the northern Warlords many in the Army&#39;s propaganda teams were Communists they explained the goals of the northern Expedition and they called for the end of many deeply engraved social Customs Wong ping soon joined the Communists we knocked down Buddha statues in the temples foot binding was still popular where I lived and we urged young girls not to bind their feet and women who had already done it to undo their feet at first we didn&#39;t know better and often we ordered people to do things against their will if a young woman refused to cut her hair several of us would hold her and cut it [Laughter] anyway I didn&#39;t know what they were up to Communism or whatever but I saw that they made trouble they tried to destroy our religion our family system and our ethical structure for instance young people&#39;s respect for the old my father told me that the biggest fault of Communism was that it was inhuman so what seemed to be cooperation between the nationalists and the Communists during the northern expedition was actually only our temporary concession so we wanted to purge the party but it was a pretty dangerous thing to do we could have been finished off both sides might move at the same time the Communists were all Among Us the problem was how to do The Purge Jang planned to purge the Communists when his army reached Shanghai here communist workers led by Joanne Li had formed armed guards and taken control of the city they were completely unaware of jang&#39;s plan to break them and they eagerly waited for his army to arrive nationalist troops moved into Shanghai Chang struck on April 12th 1927 about 1: in the morning I saw some guys in plain clothes run over our guards asked them the passwords and they began to shoot we were already surrounded from all sides and there were machine guns positioned at the intersections on the street they were standing there back at headquarters all our weapons were taken away they warned us your workers guards are disbanded go home and don&#39;t make trouble uh Jen Kai sh&#39;s army was in firm control of Shanghai Communists and workers held a huge demonstration to protest the Betrayal there were about 100,000 workers there they marched down the street towards the machine guns which fired and immed medely more than 100 people died many more were wounded many many were injured it was raining that day Bashan Road was a river of blood I remember it was drizzling and I saw many people lying in the mud still moving it was very sad when they arrested US they beat us with rifle butts yes rifle butts some of us were hit on the head and were bleeding even then all we said was good that was how we showed our Defiance so they hit us and we said good good and we grit our teeth jang&#39;s Purge spread around the country unions were closed Communists and left-wing organizers were arrested thousands were executed only days after The Purge in Shanghai Jang established a national government in N King he now controlled China&#39;s economic Heartland and over the next few years he expanded his control the success of the northern Expedition earned Jang tremendous Prestige and he adopted the title General isimo Jang had made himself the heir to sunat [Music] senen he strengthened this position by having Sun&#39;s body brought to the new capital in an Epic [Music] Journey he married ssen sister-in-law zung Ming she came from a wealthy Methodist Family she had gone to school in the United States and her English was excellent her charm was a valuable asset to Jang for he was a difficult aloof man who gained gain respect but not affection to many especially in the cities it seemed a new era was [Music] beginning people were more open to the West than ever jang&#39;s government began modernization programs the modernization is the way we keep our ancient traditional virtues but we adopt Western Technologies and Western modern social science in a way that brought to the poor specifically I lotice the medicine the building of new hospitals it was a time of construction transportation and Communications were modernized the currency system began to be unified it education was expanded J kek appointed chenle Fu a top adviser I organized and modernized the party we made it impossible for the Communists to operate I used American techniques they used Soviet Techni vast security organizations were set up a top priority was to prevent renewed communist growth in the cities where remnants of the party had gone underground shenzu worked for the security police we knew they were Communists by their speeches their posters or the Articles they wrote or if we searched their homes we&#39;d find communist papers that was the correct way but if we had doubts we&#39;d say better to kill an innocent one by mistake rather than let a bad one go after all they were fighting the Nationalist for power in spite of the security police the Communists began to rebuild support in cities where working conditions were often brutal in factories child labor was common in silk production very young children worked plucking cocoons from boiling water I came to Shanghai when I was 12 we were so miserable you had to work 17 hours a day later a progressive worker in the factory told us that people were not born to be poor one was poor because of the exploitation by others there is exploitation by the capitalist on one hand and exploitation by the labor contractor on the other you do the work and he takes the money I had no idea what Revolution meant all I thought was that the worker made sense and he cared about us poor people well he said there is a country where there is no oppression and no exploitation where everybody has a job and food all we dreamed of then was of having food so when we heard of this country we wondered where it was if only our country could be like that that&#39;s what we hoped for so we like to listen to him and we felt we could do whatever he told us we would follow him even if we had to risk Our Lives what country was that he wouldn&#39;t tell us which country it was it wasn&#39;t until later we knew that what he referred to was the Soviet Union Chinese Communist leaders believed that the revolution would be led as Marx had written by workers in the cities but a small group in the party believed the key to Revolution lay in the countryside where most of China&#39;s people lived this Renegade group was based in D Jang XI Province it was led by Ma zong Mao came from a prosperous peasant family he was a founding member of the Communist Party he had worked with the nationalists at the military academy in Canton training students to organize peasants after janek&#39;s Purge Mau returned to the Countryside by 1927 he and a small group were organizing peasants in jangi Province conditions made the area a fertile ground for communist [Music] activities foree [Music] speee in South China there were huge gaps between rich and poor rents were high and taxes were often collected decades in advance landlords were called the masters of the earth one of the four Tyrant landlords by the name of Joe came to our house and saw my 15-year-old sister and took her to be his wife he not only wanted to take my sister he also wanted me to be his maid I was only seven my father refused so he demanded $1,000 silver dollars to buy aade instead my father didn&#39;t know what to to do rather than let me be a maid my father sold me as a child bride people told me if I joined the revolution I would have my freedom I could choose who I wanted to marry if I didn&#39;t join I&#39;d have to marry this man who was over 30 so I thought if revolution could save me from this I would join the Communists organized peasant Association and began social reforms their actions Unleashed pent up hatred of local landlords and violent class struggles soon errupted we smashed the landlord&#39;s opium pipes and took away his grain and clothes he started looking for his money the landlord wasn&#39;t home his wife was hiding in the Attic where rice straw was stored we found found her we questioned her for several days and then we killed her we gave the grain to those who had nothing to eat some got about 50 some got 100 we gave the clothes to those who just didn&#39;t have any so the poor were really eager to join us by 1930 the Communists had set up a government in jangi Mao had joined forces with juder another veteran revolutionary their men formed the Red Army which leoan sha joined I often saw chairman ma he was tall and thin when he went out he rode a white horse we didn&#39;t have cars then when he went to work he would be followed by eight security guards three to carry lanterns and two to carry his lunchbox he wouldn&#39;t eat in someone&#39;s home he took his meals wherever he went sometimes when there was a meeting he would stand on a mound and Shout slogans he would shout advance to n Jang advance to n king take Janai Sheek alive although the Communist area was relatively small many nationalists were frightened by the violent events there Jen Kai Sheek was concerned the people under attack the middle and upper classes were the base of his support he launched a series of military campaigns in jangi they were defeated our main forces would lure their troops lure them into the mountains like we did in the battle at long gang we would lure them in and then pull back this is called pulling back your fist before you strike it was like drawing them into a bag and suddenly would surround them and wipe them out understand would lure the enemy deep deep into the Soviet area and then suddenly surround them we wiped out their 18th division this way all 9,000 of them from the commander down to the cooks not one escape this is called mobile or gorilla Warfare jang&#39;s forces were defeated by these Guerilla tactics four times but he continued to attack in 1934 he launched an ideological offensive called the new life movement a mixture of traditional Confucian values and European fascism he hoped to create a disciplined and orderly Society by reforming social behavior people were instructed to button their clothes stand straight and to eat noisily the movement only reached a small section of the middle class and failed to solve The Peasants problems but jang&#39;s fifth military campaign was a success in an allout effort Jang had gathered nearly 1 million soldiers and all the military Machinery he could muster and he changed tactics we adopted the tactic of moving step by step the stronghold tactic do you understand for instance I could walk 20 miles a day but instead of 20 I would only do 10 then I would stop and dig trenches and build blockhouses since the Communists didn&#39;t have cannons they couldn&#39;t take well-defended blockhouses so our troops worked very hard to build them and we wouldn&#39;t advance until a place was firmly in our control this was how we tightened our strangle hold on the Communists as the nationalists began their new tactics the Communists changed theirs that was when our party made one of its biggest mistakes the biggest what happened was that the Communist International sent an advisor leader whose original name was AO BR he claimed that the Golden Age of Guerilla Warfare was over and that it was now time to develop positional and regular Warfare when Ma heard this he realized that he and leer would never agree and after that Ma didn&#39;t go to any more meetings of the military committee Communist Party leaders supported Otto Bron the German comter representative Mao lost his position as head of the government and his Guerilla tactics were abandoned then we used Block House Warfare to deal with their Block House Warfare it was TI for T but of course it didn&#39;t work they had planes and cannons we had nothing so the Communist area shrank and shrank the nationalists were winning the Communists had already lost much popular support because of their violent class struggle by the summer of 1934 they were losing badly we were being killed off the revolution wasn&#39;t plain sailing there were people who wavered and were traitors they saw the situation was going from bad to worse and they changed with the wind communist organizers were arrested by the nationalists a nationalist official wanted to bail me out of prison to force me to be his concubine I didn&#39;t want to but they threatened me saying if you won&#39;t we&#39;ll put a firecracker in your vagina and light it aren&#39;t you afraid sitting or standing I was just as tall as anyone else why should I be someone&#39;s concubine I didn&#39;t want to but what could I do finally they took a red hot wire this long and forced it through my leg one from this side and then from that side they put the hot wire through my leg I still have the scars I was hung up by the arms I was tortured three times and then they let me me down I was too numb to feel any pain my interrogation went on from 9:00 in the morning till 4: in the afternoon then they dragged me back to my cell and said tomorrow we&#39;ll send a platoon of soldiers and rape you to death that really frightened me I wasn&#39;t afraid of being killed but how could I stand being raped though they were just threatening me they really made it look real when I was taken out the next morning there really was a platoon of soldiers waiting the officer said just look at those men if you don&#39;t confess you&#39;ll be raped to death right here I said I don&#39;t know who is a communist and I&#39;m not a communist leader I&#39;m just a laundry woman I didn&#39;t tell them a thing and in the end they sent me to the concentration camp at Jo Jang they never got anything out of my mouth in October 1934 nearly 87,000 Communists broke out of the Nationalist blockade they began a forced Retreat which became known to the world as the Long March for over a year they walked an average of 17 mil a day often through hostile territory nationalist troops chased them much of the time the soldiers crossed 24 rivers and climbed 18 mountain ranges and they walked more than 6,000 miles for the survivors it is remembered as one enormous battle going on [Music] forever by the time we got to the xang river we had lost half our troops we lost 30 to 40,000 people they weren&#39;t battle casualties we lost them on the road we were on the March day and night everyone was complaining bitterly we didn&#39;t know where we were going chairman Mau was out of power he marched with the troops when they reached tuni meetings were held Otto Bron and his supporters claimed that the nationalists had won because they were stronger Mao said it was because Braun&#39;s tactics were wrong for the first time Joe and lie openly cited with ma Joe and Li disagreed Joe did not think we had lost because of the enemy&#39;s strength but because of our own strategic and tactical mistakes since we had won in the past then ma spoke the atmosphere was calm everyone was [Music] reasonable in the end most decided that leer and Bou were wrong most people agree with Ma&#39;s ideas and Ved ma is our leader on the Long March we were so happy we called an office meeting we had a meal two dishes we were banging on the tables with our Chopsticks yeah yeah banging on the tables we were so happy we were dancing we supported Mao that&#39;s what it was like I&#39;m telling you the meeting was a victory for Ma and his belief in Guerilla tactics he became the leader of the Long March and soon of the entire Communist Party Oto Bron lost his influence from this time on the Chinese Communists received virtually no help from the Soviet Union the March went on the soldiers continued to face the threat of Relentless nationalist attack and nature which was often just as lethal when they crossed the snowy mountains most of the troops who came from the South were completely unprepared it was snowing and there were hail storms arms I had to stop because it was too slippery and if I fell off the edge it would be all over and it would be easy to fall off so I decided to take my shoes off and walk Barefoot when my feet touched the snow ah it was impossible the coldness started from my feet and slowly climbed up my legs my legs went numb I couldn&#39;t walk then I saw y Chen Ching he was wearing a pair of straw sandals and he had an extra pair he couldn&#39;t stop walking so he just threw the sandals to me and kept going by then the cold was already up to here when it gets to your heart you die after I put on the straw sandals I stamped my feet for a few minutes and I could feel my legs again and I could walk I still have a photo of [Music] us if it weren&#39;t for him I&#39;d have died in 35 in the snowy mountains hundreds did die of cold altitude sickness and exhaustion the shared hardships forged fir bonds between the soldiers and earned ma unswerving loyalty M Zedong gave me his ration to eat three little steamed buns in a little bowl this big at first I didn&#39;t know that it was ma in one bite I ate two of them when I found out it was his meal I stopped eating he said you must eat you still have to March you forced me to eat the last one Som was very kind very kind to his subordinates he took good care of us the Army now had to cross the grasslands more people died here than on any other part of the March there was nothing there absolutely nothing as far as you could see all there was was Marsh the endless Marsh no trees no houses nothing stepping on the grass was like stepping on bean curd it was soft from time to time someone stepped in the wrong spot and fell into the mud if he fell in up to here it was all over when the mud was up to your chest no one could save you you could die at any second you just couldn&#39;t tell we finally got hold of a newspaper and learned that there was a communist base in Northern chanii Province it was only then that we decided to go there we needed to rest and regroup we knew it was extremely poor there but we had nowhere else to go the Communists reached yanan the end of the Long March in the fall of 1935 95% of the Red Army had been lost [Music] but Mao didn&#39;t lose confidence he asked us a question although there are now only six or 7,000 of us left are we stronger or weaker than before his answer was that we were stronger he said the people who remained were gold [Music] Jen Kai Sheek had nearly wiped out the Communists but he faced another threat a foreign threat which many considered more dangerous than the Communists Japan for years Japan had had economic interests in North China and manua throughout the 1920s it expanded its interests and defended them with increasingly hostile military activity Japan&#39;s aim was to colonized China the Japanese posed the Great greatest threat to the warlord of the region Jang shalang Jang shalang was one of the most powerful men in China he was the General iso&#39;s second in command and he retained his own huge well equipped Army in September 1931 the Japanese attacked Jang shuliang troops we bore the brunt of the attack the Brigade Commander gave orders first he telephoned me and asked me about the situation then he gave the order don&#39;t resist you are not permitted to resist I pointed out that the enemy had already begun to attack he said then collect the solders weapons and hide them in the storehouse I said that there was no way I could collect the solders weapons and hide them when the enemy was shelling us he said then why don&#39;t you withdraw I said I have only received an order to offer no resistance I have no order to withdraw he said it would be better if you withdraw otherwise you will be held responsible then the phone was cut off the Chinese troops did not resist and the Japanese quickly seized control of all of Manchuria Jenai Sheek afraid the Japanese military would crush China had chosen a policy of non-resistance his Deputy Commander Jang shuliang protested the situation many held him responsible others believed he had received orders from Jan Kai Sheek and they blamed the government we should have resisted if I had been Brigade Commander I would not have withdrawn I would have resisted resisted until daylight when a foreign army attacks the cities of another country in broad daylight I don&#39;t think that can be justified to the world we have a saying an army is maintained for a thousand days to be used for one why didn&#39;t they fight I was very angry the Japanese used Chinese protests as an excuse to attack [Music] Shanghai this time there was hardfought resistance hello everybody this is p Gibbon speaking this was the last stand the last barricade of the Chinese forces of the 19th root Army that opposed the advance of the Japanese Marines through these ruins hardly a month ago families lived in these places fathers and mothers and children this was all that they had in the world in that part of CHA occupied by the Japanese all means of communication are being destroyed all Chinese found in this quarter are forced to undergo a thorough search as snipers possession of arms is taken as conclusive evidence of guilt and the punishment is certain death a ceasefire was declared in Shanghai but prospects for peace were dim on March 1st 1932 Japan set up a puppet government in Manchuria which they renamed manchuko they installed the former boy Emperor Pui now a young man as head of state the Chinese were angered and humiliated by the Japanese attacks and by the government&#39;s response these feelings were expressed in demonstrations the Arts and in feature films come [Music] stop [Music] but demonstrations against Japan were quickly suppressed by the government Jan Kai Sheek was afraid these disturbances would provoke another attack which China would not survive we weren&#39;t ready we couldn&#39;t let a little event trigger a war between China and Japan before we were ready to fight the best way out was to persuade the Japanese to give up the idea of invasion we tried everything the Nationalist policy was that to resist foreign aggression the country first needs internal pacification this was stated by Jang gek and it was in all the papers it was absolutely necessary to wipe out the Communists before we could fight Japan it&#39;s a new country Mao and Juda knew that Jang would strike while they were still weak from the Long March in an effort to prevent this and to harness popular anti-japanese feeling Mao called for the nationalists to unite with the Communists against Japan ma declared we cannot even discuss communism if we are robbed of a country in which to practice it but Jang continued his plans to attack the Communists again Jang shuang seen here next to Jang disagreed he and his men only wanted to fight Japan to recover their Homeland but they could not make the general isimo change his mind in December 1936 in a desperate act which shocked the country D Jang shuang ordered his Commander kidnapped sun mingju and some heavily armed soldiers stormed chek&#39;s residence when I got to the bedroom I saw that it was a mess and no one was there I felt janek&#39;s bed it was still warm so I knew he hadn&#39;t been gone long so we went up and behind the hill I saw him squeezed between two rocks it was a spot that everyone called tiger stone rock he was standing there he was very frightened his face was covered with dirt he was in pajamas because he hadn&#39;t had time to get dressed I saluted and said please General isimo come quickly I was afraid that someone might shoot him I felt a heavy responsibility the day he was kidnapped our Central Committee immediately held me meetings in the evening we held an emergency meeting everyone was trying to figure out how to save him Madame Jang flew to xan Jang Kai Sheek feared he would be put on trial and executed if anything should happen to Mr Chang no one in China would be able to fight Japan nobody would be able to stop Jaan ja and the Japanese would certainly March into China that would be certain no one would resist old China watched as his fate hung in the [Music] balance Shanghai China the Paris of the Orient in news reel of the 1920s and 30s life here looked fun an exotic mix of east and west yeah the reality of China was different most Chinese lived in the country where their lives continued largely Untouched by the 20th [Music] century but the people of China were about to be engulfed in years of violent conflict years which would dramatically change their country and their [Music] [Music] lives in these years China&#39;s leader Jang Kai Sheek faced two major threats to his power the Communists led by Mount Zong and the Japanese they controlled most of North China and planned a fullscale Invasion many Chinese demanded that jang&#39;s government fight Japanese aggression but he was afraid the Japanese military would crush China and he refused in December 1936 anti-japanese feeling boiled over and created an astonishing crisis Jang KK&#39;s Deputy in an effort to force his Commander to resist Japan kidnapped [Music] him new Thunder Over China a storm which the world fears through the team faces the shocking news of the kidnapping of Shang kek who is given credit for unifying the nation some say the most ominous kidnapping in history which threatens World catastrophe and now again the whole world as the world waited Madame Jang flew to be with her husband Jo and live for the Communists went to help negotiate the negotiations went on day after day finally Jang was released everyone had recognized that he was the only man who could lead the country and he had at last agreed to work with his old enemies the Communists against Japan it was the beginning of the united front mong&#39;s Communists and Jang Kai sh&#39;s nationalists would stand up to Japanese aggression together [Music] here&#39;s where it started the Marco Polo Bridge a few miles Southwest of ping on July 7th 1937 fighting broke out on this bridge between Chinese and Japanese troops within days Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China it was the beginning of World War II in Asia the Japanese easily overpowered United Chinese resistance they took Beijing in days and then tin in the Japanese swept inland [Music] in October 1937 they arrived outside Maya Village a few miles from these [Music] scenes Japanese Devils entered our Village from the West West Side they started killing and burning their way through the village they were just brutal they killed 46 families and even every animal they saw then they got to my home we were hiding in the cellar Japanese Devil shot into the cellar we children all cried I want to get out I want to get out when my father got up three Devils stripped him to the waist and tied him up he was tied up with more than 10 other men I was put in the pit it was full of people they&#39;d been there a long time the Japanese kept bringing more and more people I was there for hours later about another 200 people were pushing the pit was [Music] full bullets were whistling a bullet hit my hand felt numb and hot didn&#39;t hurt I didn&#39;t move it got dark I ran away the Japanese killed and burned for three days and nights then they left my grandfather and mother started looking for my father&#39;s body they found it in that big pit there were bullet holes in his chest he was killed by the Japanese Devils when I got home I pushed the door open it was quiet no one was there I wondered what had happened to them I looked everywhere and I couldn&#39;t find them I went outside I saw that there was fresh Earth in the courtyard I thought someone must be buried in it and I went over to the well the winch had been torn out people were in there too I asked a couple of people to help me I found my grandmother mother and two sons buried in the [Music] earth I pulled my wife and three-year-old out of the well I hadn&#39;t seen them for just a few days and now none of them could ever talk to me again it was too horrible I buried them that&#39;s all VOA Shanghai was bombarded there were huge civilian casualties nationalist troops fought hard but they were forced to retreat Shanghai fell in November 1937 in just 5 months the Japanese had captured half of China&#39;s Seaboard Jang kek and his wife appealed to the world for support to you who are enjoying the Serenity and security of your own homes I wish to bring a message from the women of War ridden China it is this if you wish to avoid the calamities that are befalling China now and the killing and mutilation of your loved ones and your fellow beings boycott Japanese Goods the battle for the capital Nang King was fierce again the Japanese overpowered nationalist resistance in December 1937 the Japanese entered the city and they began to butcher civilians an estimated 200,000 men women and children were massacred it was called the rape of Nang King by June 1938 Chang was desperate he ordered the dkes of the Yellow River broken hoping the flood would stop the Japanese forces the people in the area were not warned for them it was catastrophic 11 cities and thousands of villages were flooded Millions were made homeless hundreds of thousands died and the Japanese continued they had taken all of janek&#39;s power base now he adopted classical military strategy to trade space for time taking advantage of China&#39;s huge size the government and the Army retreated thousands of miles [Music] Inland schools universities and businesses followed and [Music] people from all over occupied China Millions left their homes and fled in a massive Exodus the government moved to Chun King in Sichuan [Music] Province it was a remote undeveloped region ruled by Warlords and had never been under jang&#39;s control the Japanese bomb junking for weeks at a time the war effort was hopelessly under supplied and underfunded Jang shored up his government with propaganda and parades to boost Mor Madame Jenai Sheek toured hospitals and orphanages Chung King held on many other Chinese traveled to the Northwest to yanan where the Communists had set up their headquarters after the Long March they came because they wanted to fight Japan and because there was a sense here of building a new Society the atmosphere of these early days is remembered as one of enthusiasm and exuberance the yanan spirit yanan was still small enough that most people had contact with the leadership Mao was developing some of his most important theoretical work he was adapting Marxism to conditions in China his theories were studied by all who came to yanan I went to the anti-japanese University in yanan in the fall of 1938 we had classes on current affairs philosophy and so on none of us minded the hard conditions at night we shared huge beds each person had just this little space about a foot one next to the other we got up early in the morning we did morning drill and we learned how to use weapons to fight the Japanese the term was only a few months long then we would be sent to the front and we sang the [Music] song from yanan the young people were sent to work in villages throughout North China and Manchuria they recruited anyone who would resist Japan they also changed the face of North China by initiating moderate reforms reducing land rent and taxes they held elections and introduced voting the Communists carefully built rural middle class support and they avoided the violent class struggle they had used in the past woman our slogan was if you have money give money if you have a gun give your gun and if you are healthy come and fight we didn&#39;t attack the rich we even allied with landlords as long as they were not collaborators and wanted to resist I am from a rich farming family when the party started in our area why did they come to us who were upper class because the poor peasants couldn&#39;t afford to give up their work in the fields besides they were not necessarily more Progressive than we were women were the most constrained by tradition even in the early 1940s many young girls still had their feet bound and they were often treated as virtual Slaves by their families for example a woman had no rights in her own family since she had no income she was dependent when someone knocked on the door asking is anyone home she would say no there&#39;s no one here see she didn&#39;t even think of herself as a person W shinan had married xiaa a young communist officer after work shua and I used to walk through the village holding hands sometimes after dinner we would just sit there talking and laughing they were very envious they said you must have done a lot of good in your previous life for God to have given you such a good husband I said that&#39;s got nothing to do with it it&#39;s because women like me have changed our political status we&#39;re independent people Among Us men and women are equal we are equal even though he is the husband and I am the wife we tried to explain this to them it was all very surprising to them the Communist call to fight Japan combined with their moderate social reforms had a powerful appeal throughout North China the party established a solid base of support and the resistance they organized was effective youngang hung describes how he and a friend ambushed a Japanese regiment which came to their Village these two areas had more than 10 landmines when the enemy came we triggered the mines they got blown up on both sides we wouldn&#39;t let the bastards get away the enemy came towards us and the two of us were really happy the guy with me was called Fung her I said what about it Fung her you get the officer I&#39;ll get the guy over there fur aimed at the Japanese officer bang he got him right in the head he killed over I pulled my trigger bang got another one the enemy sent a regiment with 100 cards they came to take our weat but we didn&#39;t lose any their carts didn&#39;t go back empty They Carried the bodies of 60 dead Devils the Japanese responded to communist resistance with a campaign of Terror called burn all kill all loot all they decimated any village with communist connections and fragmented communist control of the region the Communists and nationalists were still officially fighting Japan together Bound by the united front but there were frequent clashes between the two sides in January 1941 nationalist forces suddenly attacked a communist unit the unit was wiped out it was the end of the united front Mao sent a message to Jenai Sheek those who who play with fire ought to be careful if things continue to develop this way all the people of the country will throw you into the gutter jang&#39;s response to a journalist was the Japanese are a disease of the skin the Communists are a disease of the heart Chung King the Japanese continued to bomb Jang KK&#39;s wartime capital by December 1941 the war had been going on for nearly 5 years nationalist armies had taken beating after beating Japan was winning the war Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war on Japan I knew then that Japan was bound to be defeated bound to lose the war today we the people of the United States fighting a desperate rear guard action against the Japs grimly realized that our future depends upon holding a fighting China as our Ally well may we Ponder what might happen if China should fall if the full force of Japan now deadlocked in China were released to strike into India into Australia into Mexico or Canada or California despite the propaganda the Allies gave China low priority they were struggling to survive the war in Europe General Joseph Stillwell was named the top American commander in China Stillwell had lived in China and he spoke the language his job was to keep China in the war and improve its fighting capacity he commanded Chinese troops and he believed that properly trained they would be among the best in the world but he railed against the Nationalist command he would speak in expletives to me about the Chinese generalship uh because he would find them pigheaded uh vacillating they change their mind uh and again Jang would not want to commit a a large Force to gain an objective he would send it in in driblets and it would then be consumed by the Japanese in driblets Stillwell found that the general lisimo was unwilling to commit his troops against the Japanese because he was saving them for use against the Chinese Communists he had 500,000 of his best troops blockading the area occupied by the Chinese Communists Stillwell soon saw the Chinese war effort was hampered by another problem corruption it started at the top with jang&#39;s Inner Circle his wife&#39;s family and a handful of his oldest friends they controlled the economy and made enormous profits from their positions Jang himself was never accused of corruption but he did nothing to stop it and it spread to all levels in the Nationalist government those it hurt most were the ordinary soldiers Stillwell was trying to command conscripts were treated brutally they were afraid we would run away so they would tie five or six men together on the same rope that&#39;s how we traveled we were strung up in groups I saw hundreds of our conscripts strung up and pulled Along on ropes at night to stop them running away they tied their legs I saw it with my own eyes the nationalists had corrupt officers they put sand in the rice to replace what they had taken we ate moldy rice with a lot of sand in it they said we were drafted to fight Japan and defend our homeland if they really meant it why didn&#39;t they give us food and clothes why was there corruption poverty if America didn&#39;t have enough food clothing corruption would exist there too as the Chinese saying goes only when one has food and clothing no ethics nearly 1 and a half million men died of starvation or illness before ever reaching their units one out of every 10 men drafted during the war still well in the the Foreign Service officers filed reports about nationalist corruption and other problems to no avail nationalist censorship and the American media bolstered jang&#39;s image well known to every American is lean Keen General isimo Chang taek Undisputed leader and Idol of 450 millions of Chinese in 1943 Madame Jang visited the United States and Charmed Congress and the public let us not for for get that Japan in her occupied areas today has greater resources at her command than Germany let us not forget that during the first four and a half years of total aggression China has borne Japan&#39;s sadistic Fury uned and alone she repeatedly requested huge amounts of money and supplies for the government when the US Treasury expressed reservations Jang threatened to sign A Separate Peace with Japan and so millions of dollars were sent no one had to account for the money and much of it simply disappeared to be fair I must say that in any government at any time there will be situations we don&#39;t like some unfair and illegal Behavior this can happen in any country any government at any time especially during a period of bad economic conditions after years of war naturally some people are tempted by material things in August 1944 a group of American officers flew deep into Northwest China to yanan anxious to improve China&#39;s fighting capacity Stillwell and the American government wanted to know if the Communists could be used effectively in the war the Foreign Service officers who went to yanan were called the Dixie Mission it was the first official Western recognition of the Communists my first impressions well madun was a large even then slightly tending towards plump individual with a very smooth face no facial hair been noticed um and he uh uh was not what you would call charismatic he was straightforward did not dwell on polite phrases at all but there was no question that he was the boss everyone was differential to him including people like Joe and Li and Drew dur they uh they looked to him and when he spoke no dog Bart Mao was now the Undisputed leader of the Communists the year before Mal Zedong thought had become their official ideology no criticism of Communist Party policies was tolerated [Music] the Communists wanted to create a good impression for they wanted American help in the immediate struggle against Japan and they hoped for long-term support when the war was over the American officers spent a year in yanan assessing the Communist organization and their military potential apart from from a few Russian advisers they saw no evidence of Soviet support with full US Government approval the Americans instructed the Communists on strategy and weaponry they watched Guerilla tactics they traveled out from yanan and watched the Communists attack Japanese blockhouses they saw that the Communists controlled huge areas in the countryside of North and Central China Patrick Hurley President Roosevelt&#39;s personal representative visited his mission was to mediate between Jang and the Communists when Hurley arrived in yanan the the plane sat down and uh the door was flung open and there stood Hurley and his major generals uniform you know glistening in his white mustachios and his 6&#39;3 and he let out a choa war hoop and of course uh the the Chinese are much too courteous to to stand and say what goes on you know they just I suppose they assume that this is the way foreign Devils behave when they appear upon a scene somewhere China was a very complex phenomenon uh and it really baffled him I think he had great difficulty with identifying who the various Chinese were uh he had maong was Mustang uh and the nicknames that grew up there in an attempt to uh uh identify people uh was a very clear indication that he really was somewhat at Sea shall we say despite cordial appearances Hurley&#39;s mediation went badly and led to deep communist mistrust of him Hurley supported Jen kek and did not seem to take the Communist seriously the Foreign Service officers made a different assessment I reported on the Communists after my visit there that uh I thought that they would probably win in China uh and the reason I think that that would happen is they had the popular support uh I mentioned I think at the time that that they were a democratic force that was a that was a misnomer they were a popular force and they had a popular support and only in that sense were they Democratic relations between Jang and Stillwell were deteriorating Stillwell on behalf of the American government demanded that Jang make sweeping changes in his army Stillwell talked about the bad things in jang&#39;s government and jang&#39;s arrogance he also asked that part of jang&#39;s troops be placed under his Direct Control and that Americans be appointed high ranking officers Janek did not accept that but all those were not the main disagreements the biggest agreement was that Stillwell wanted to send weapons to the Communists to arm communist troops which was the last thing Jang Kai Sheek wanted Jang demanded Stillwell&#39;s recall John Davies asked for a transfer almost every American officer with in-depth experience in China was fired or resigned Jang now had Undisputed control of China&#39;s war effort Stillwell was replaced by General wedm who was much more sympathetic to Jang and the war with Japan was soon to be over in August 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the Japanese surrendered in the victory celebrations Jang was the hero of China but the quick end of the war left an important question unresolved who would take the japanes jaes surrender in North China the Communists raced to get their armies North nationalist troops were airlifted by America to arrive first general Lu janga remembers what Mao said about jenek he wants to come down the mountain to harvest peaches that&#39;s what ma said our people and our army had made great sacrifices behind the Japanese lines so we wanted to take the surrender in those areas I rode all night back to the front you couldn&#39;t say we were harvesting peaches but we did want to taste a few Civil War seemed inevitable Patrick Hurley now US ambassador in China persuaded Mao to go to Chun King for talks with Jang the two men had not met in nearly 20 years since the days of ssen in Canton Jang addressed Mao as elder brother and Mao made the toast Long Live changai Sheek but the talks LED nowhere President Truman did not give up he sent General George Marshall to mediate an agreement was signed and then quickly broke down the Civil War began at first it went badly for the Communists in March 194 47 Mao announced to his troops that they would withdraw from yanan because of a successful nationalist advance but yanan was only a symbol and not the base of their power their real power lay in the vast Countryside of North China and Manchuria it had been built up during the war with Japan when moderate reforms had attracted support from all economic levels of society now the Communist leadership decided to expand their support by concentrating on the poor they launched a radical Land Reform movement attacking their old allies in the prosperous middle class class in Leela chei house we first drove out his cattle and pigs then we took all the furniture cabinets and Trunks out of his house we took all his clothes too after that we shut him up in a small room and told him to write a confession then the people wanted to struggle with him they shouted Lei you must confess honestly who did you exploit how much money have you piled up where have you hidden it you must confess we struggled with him for a long time he had buried his silver dollars underground we got him to confess where he had hidden the money as the poor divided up the land of the prosperous many Communists were Torn Between the demands of the party and of their families even veteran party members were attacked when the reforms came you had to go along with them because I was a party member I had to take the lead my parents didn&#39;t agree with me even though they were in charge of the family property they had to listen to me at the time of the Land Reform my family had a new cart a horse a donkey and about 5 acres of land we had a large family and enough food and so one night they sealed up our house all the landlords and Rich peasants were locked up in one spot before the mass rally I went and saw the situation was no good I was afraid the struggle meeting might go wild I was scared the meeting began my father was Wong D and they tied him to a post everyone in the village was there and then they went crazy some innocent people got beaten and some bad people got beaten Village leaders tried to control the mob they even sat on the landlords to keep them from being torn apart what they did was wrong they ignored the facts if you weren&#39;t poor if you were better off then you were guilty that&#39;s how they reasoned Land Reform had become mob rule it tore families and Villages apart the Communists began to lose support in December 1947 Mau urged restraint 5 months later the movement was stopped the Communists tried to minimize the damage and backtrack to their moderate wartime policies they managed to salvage peasant support in the cities people&#39;s lives had not improved after the war massive economic problems were undercutting jang&#39;s support the government&#39;s Financial policies were chaotic the currency system changed many times the old Fabby paper money was changed to the new Fabby paper money then that was changed to the gold un then when there weren&#39;t enough gold un it was changed to the UN Shai silver dollars there was also gold and even American dollars were used the currency system was in complete chaos so when people got paid in the morning they would rush to buy things because prices would rise by the afternoon sometimes the price would double people had a rough time the homeless and starving filled city streets Black Market trading and Corruption were widespread to make matters worse in 1947 floods in the South destroyed the rice crop and in the north there was a devastating famine in response the United Nations relief agency sent millions of dollars in Aid America continued to send vast quantities of of War Surplus and millions more dollars to help Jang in his struggle against the Communists many were certain that jang&#39;s family was embezzling huge amounts of this Aid he and his wife continued to ask for more in 1947 President Truman sent Albert wedm back to China to assess the situation although it was clear that jang&#39;s government was corrupt and losing support for America there was no alternative wamy urged Jang to affect immediate drastic political and economic reforms at the same time he recommended more us Aid way de&#39;s recommendation that we continue to support the government of Jan Kai Sheek has to be considered in the context of the times the times of the Cold War in which the Chinese Communists seem to be allied with the Russians and the hope that somehow or other military aid might contribute to the survival of Shan Kai schek government but American Aid could not win the war for Jang he made the crucial mistake of overextending his forces in the north the Communists responded with a change in tactics they mounted a major offensive against the Nationalist armies in the cities the change of tactics worked by November 1948 after only a month and a half the Communists won control of North China nationalist troops were crossing over to us in divisions and armies when we first got to the Northeast we had 100,000 troops now we were four or 500,000 strong our equipment all came from the United States and Jang Shack there was a joke among the soldiers they said that Chang was our best supplier of American weapons that was the joke they said that after we win we&#39;ll give him a medal that weighs a ton because he did such a good job for us after 8 years of fighting Japan nobody wanted to fight anymore even I didn&#39;t want to fight anymore Jen kek reprimanded me this war has to be fought if we don&#39;t wipe out the Communists we&#39;ll die without without a place to be buried we&#39;ve got to go all out I couldn&#39;t say anything to that he was my teacher my Academy commandant he had been my commanding officer for many years all I could do was [Music] obey with North China under communist control the battle for Central China be began W way LED Jen Kai&#39;s cracked 12th Army our movements were slow our equipment was Heavy cumbersome we were fighting retreating and bringing up reinforcements simultaneously our formations were beaten back bit by bit we would be wiped out in one day two days time so I gave the order to flee that save some people December 15th we broke out in several places my Deputy commander and I got into a tank and fled we fled to a place about 15 miles fromang that evening the evening of December 15th the tank I was in broke down couldn&#39;t move so we got out and fled on foot the Communists were everywhere and they caught me I became their prisoner the nationalists failed because we completely lost the people&#39;s support I had heard that during the northern Expedition the people gave us flowers and food during the war against Japan the people provided intelligence and helped us resist the Japanese once the Civil War started we couldn&#39;t find anyone to give us even Road directions there is a saying in China the water that carries the boat can also overturn it on January 21st 1949 11 days after the battle for Central China Jang kek resigned in Shanghai people were leaving in drov Jan kek and his government retreated to the island of Taiwan it was carefully planned they took a huge part of China&#39;s art treasures and all of the Central Bank Reserves us Aid followed the last shipments of arms and ammunitions were sent to Taiwan not to China the government of Jang kashik had already made its preparations for transfer to Taiwan so we never stopped supporting Jang kek Jang did not give up all hope my father&#39;s first order was for us to examine our past mistakes both domestic and international secondly we should prepare to recover the mainland he never said we should fight our way back what we should do was help the people on the mainland overthrow the regime so we&#39;ve been making preparations based on this order since the first day in Taiwan the war continued without Jang kek the Communists prepared to cross the Yi River heading for Nanking and Shanghai [Music] they quickly overcame nationalist defenses with the Communists just outside Shanghai the remaining nationalist police stepped up their anti-communist activities [Music] [Applause] my husband had been arrested by the nationalists and I couldn&#39;t find him I was both happy and worried at the same time happy because the revolution would soon succeed that was obvious and worried because my husband had been arrested and we didn&#39;t know where he [Music] was [Music] [Applause] [Music] fore [Applause] on October 1st 1949 we listened to the radio we heard the ceremony of the founding of the People&#39;s Republic of China chairman ma proclaimed that the Chinese people had stood up all of us were Overjoyed we jumped around we were really proud and [Music] [Applause] happy my daughters were very young they asked why there was so much excitement I told them they would understand when they were older as for me it was the day I&#39;d been working for all my life [Music] October 1st I was locked up in the war criminals prison I had no desire to go on living but I couldn&#39;t just die I was very stubb I really couldn&#39;t change the way I thought so I was locked up in thought reform for 27 years this man I think he was a great man he was a hero but his meth methods were the old ones of China and he lost I put my life on the line for him in the end I was buried alive for him you could say I was loyal to him to the end loyal to the end I felt Happy on the one hand because I had been looking forward to Liberation so much and it had come at last that&#39;s what the on the other hand I felt sad for my husband was dead but then we thought that people always die in Revolution no death no victory [Music] foree [Music] e [Music] [Applause] [Music] major funding for this program was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities additional funding was provided by the John D and Katherine T MacArthur Foundation The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the New York County for the Humanities this is PBS

[Music] [Music] at the beginning of the 20th century China looked much the same as it had for hundreds of [Music] years the country was still ruled by an emperor men wore their hair in Long cues as a sign of subservience to the ruling Dynasty in the old days barbers carried all their stuff on a shoulder pole and they worked in the street if a bobber saw a person who had no queue he could report him and if he did so the person could be beheaded the saying was keep your hair or lose your head beneath the traditional appearance there was growing discontent with Imperial rule in 1911 a military re spread around the country and the emperor was [Music] overthrown men cut off their cues in a symbolic gesture of [Music] Revolution sometimes at The City Gate I saw people with big scissors whenever they saw someone with a queue they cut it off I saw people crying saying now they say we are revolutionaries what are we supposed to to do the cutting of qes was only the beginning of the Revolution the Republic of China was declared the country was soon caught up in an ideological [Music] battle two men led the struggle Jang kek and Malong the conflict transformed World politics for in 1949 China became what it is today the largest communist state on Earth this is the story of China in [Applause] [Music] [Music] Revolution in the early years of the Republic the central government was weak and ineffective dozens of military commanders called Warlords moved into the political vacuum in the early days of the Republic the Warlords fought each other when I was a child in wangi Province I saw so many battles you can&amp;#39;t imagine how many battles were fought lots of people were so scared they just went and HD when Warlords got into a fight people&amp;#39;s lives were completely devastated the Warlords were a diverse group The Warlord of Manchuria was a major figure in National politics the Opium warlord made a fortune growing poppies the Christian General was said to baptize his troops with a fire hose many Warlords were landlords they were often supported by a certain foreign power in the early years of the Republic China was torn apart by foreign powers for instance wangi and guangong provinces were under the influence of England and yunan of France since the 19th century England France Germany the United States and Japan had traded with China they based their interests in the major ports around the country [Music] most foreigners lived in special areas called concessions which they controlled with their own local [Music] governments we didn&amp;#39;t have the term imperialism the term came later we called them foreign Devils they were devil to us why did we hate foreigners we hated any Foreigner any foreign country that wanted to divide up China it was called divide up then not invade they wanted to divide up China just like cutting a melon into pieces people used to say now you want to divide up our country you foreign Devils you&amp;#39;re bastards in May 1919 for the first time Chinese took to the streets to Pro protest this dividing up of their country they saw that the problems of imperialism and Warlords had pushed China to the verge of collapse the demonstration sparked a vocal nationalism and an intense search for political Solutions one of the few political leaders addressing these problems was sunat sen sun was the leader of a coalition group called the Nationalist party he was a charismatic man whose speeches attracted men to his cause Sun knew that the first thing he needed was an Army to defeat the Warlords and unite the country he appealed to Western governments for money for his cause at the time none of the imperialist countries wanted to help us only the Soviet Union wanted to help us the Soviet Union had no friends in Asia so they had to work with us friend England and the other countries didn&amp;#39;t want us to be United it appeared the Soviet Union did want to help us China had to be United so of course we cooperated with them one condition of Soviet help was that the Nationalist party allow members of the newly formed Chinese Communist party to join son agreed and in 1924 the Soviets helped him set up a military academy just outside Canton the W POA Academy quickly became a magnet for patriotic youth from all over China some were nationalists some were Communists some were not affiliated with any party they trained for a military campaign that would one day unite the country the Northern Expedition son appointed his Protege Janai Sheek commander of the academy Jang was a professional Soldier like many of his generation he had attended military school in Japan he had worked with sun for over a decade jang&amp;#39;s son remembers what his father and sonen talked about although I wasn&amp;#39;t usually included in their day-to-day conversations there were times when they were walking having tea when I heard them talking about National Affairs and when they talked about National Affairs they were very serious very enthusiastic they wanted to build up China because in the East we had under autocracy for too long Jang was the commander of all the cadets and of the Academy&amp;#39;s staff many of China&amp;#39;s Future Leaders were under his command one of them was a young Communist Party member Jo and Li Joe was the director of the political education department under his Direction the cadets watched and performed plays with simple political messages with without Revolution there was no hope for this country so political education was given on the front songs played quite a big role the song goes like [Music] this as his army trained son and his wife Sun Chingling sailed to Beijing to negotiate with the city&amp;#39;s warlord but son was ill with cancer he died soon after arriving in Beijing on March 12th [Music] 1925 in death son was revered as the father of the Chinese [Music] Republic there was no one of his stature to take over the leadership and a struggle for power in the party [Music] began Jang kek emerged the Victor in June 1926 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the northern Expedition the campaign to unite the country a month later the young Army set [Music] out full of patriotic enthusiasm they won Victory after victory in just 6 months they defeated 34 Warlords and they swept up to Central China all along the way the people welcomed us for example they would boil water and cook sweet potatoes by the side of the road where our troops were passing they would say Brothers come and eat and drink help [Music] yourselves the Army was well disciplined then and so the soldiers and the officers they always paid for whatever they ate and drank When the Northern Expedition Army reached our region they held Mass rallies everybody went at the rallies speakers talked about the cooperation between the nationalists and the Communists they called for the defeat of the northern Warlords and the imperialists and they asked peasants not to pay land rent and debts I didn&amp;#39;t know much about revolutions then I didn&amp;#39;t know a thing about communism or opposing imperialism but it seemed like a good idea to fight exploitation and the northern Warlords many in the Army&amp;#39;s propaganda teams were Communists they explained the goals of the northern Expedition and they called for the end of many deeply engraved social Customs Wong ping soon joined the Communists we knocked down Buddha statues in the temples foot binding was still popular where I lived and we urged young girls not to bind their feet and women who had already done it to undo their feet at first we didn&amp;#39;t know better and often we ordered people to do things against their will if a young woman refused to cut her hair several of us would hold her and cut it [Laughter] anyway I didn&amp;#39;t know what they were up to Communism or whatever but I saw that they made trouble they tried to destroy our religion our family system and our ethical structure for instance young people&amp;#39;s respect for the old my father told me that the biggest fault of Communism was that it was inhuman so what seemed to be cooperation between the nationalists and the Communists during the northern expedition was actually only our temporary concession so we wanted to purge the party but it was a pretty dangerous thing to do we could have been finished off both sides might move at the same time the Communists were all Among Us the problem was how to do The Purge Jang planned to purge the Communists when his army reached Shanghai here communist workers led by Joanne Li had formed armed guards and taken control of the city they were completely unaware of jang&amp;#39;s plan to break them and they eagerly waited for his army to arrive nationalist troops moved into Shanghai Chang struck on April 12th 1927 about 1: in the morning I saw some guys in plain clothes run over our guards asked them the passwords and they began to shoot we were already surrounded from all sides and there were machine guns positioned at the intersections on the street they were standing there back at headquarters all our weapons were taken away they warned us your workers guards are disbanded go home and don&amp;#39;t make trouble uh Jen Kai sh&amp;#39;s army was in firm control of Shanghai Communists and workers held a huge demonstration to protest the Betrayal there were about 100,000 workers there they marched down the street towards the machine guns which fired and immed medely more than 100 people died many more were wounded many many were injured it was raining that day Bashan Road was a river of blood I remember it was drizzling and I saw many people lying in the mud still moving it was very sad when they arrested US they beat us with rifle butts yes rifle butts some of us were hit on the head and were bleeding even then all we said was good that was how we showed our Defiance so they hit us and we said good good and we grit our teeth jang&amp;#39;s Purge spread around the country unions were closed Communists and left-wing organizers were arrested thousands were executed only days after The Purge in Shanghai Jang established a national government in N King he now controlled China&amp;#39;s economic Heartland and over the next few years he expanded his control the success of the northern Expedition earned Jang tremendous Prestige and he adopted the title General isimo Jang had made himself the heir to sunat [Music] senen he strengthened this position by having Sun&amp;#39;s body brought to the new capital in an Epic [Music] Journey he married ssen sister-in-law zung Ming she came from a wealthy Methodist Family she had gone to school in the United States and her English was excellent her charm was a valuable asset to Jang for he was a difficult aloof man who gained gain respect but not affection to many especially in the cities it seemed a new era was [Music] beginning people were more open to the West than ever jang&amp;#39;s government began modernization programs the modernization is the way we keep our ancient traditional virtues but we adopt Western Technologies and Western modern social science in a way that brought to the poor specifically I lotice the medicine the building of new hospitals it was a time of construction transportation and Communications were modernized the currency system began to be unified it education was expanded J kek appointed chenle Fu a top adviser I organized and modernized the party we made it impossible for the Communists to operate I used American techniques they used Soviet Techni vast security organizations were set up a top priority was to prevent renewed communist growth in the cities where remnants of the party had gone underground shenzu worked for the security police we knew they were Communists by their speeches their posters or the Articles they wrote or if we searched their homes we&amp;#39;d find communist papers that was the correct way but if we had doubts we&amp;#39;d say better to kill an innocent one by mistake rather than let a bad one go after all they were fighting the Nationalist for power in spite of the security police the Communists began to rebuild support in cities where working conditions were often brutal in factories child labor was common in silk production very young children worked plucking cocoons from boiling water I came to Shanghai when I was 12 we were so miserable you had to work 17 hours a day later a progressive worker in the factory told us that people were not born to be poor one was poor because of the exploitation by others there is exploitation by the capitalist on one hand and exploitation by the labor contractor on the other you do the work and he takes the money I had no idea what Revolution meant all I thought was that the worker made sense and he cared about us poor people well he said there is a country where there is no oppression and no exploitation where everybody has a job and food all we dreamed of then was of having food so when we heard of this country we wondered where it was if only our country could be like that that&amp;#39;s what we hoped for so we like to listen to him and we felt we could do whatever he told us we would follow him even if we had to risk Our Lives what country was that he wouldn&amp;#39;t tell us which country it was it wasn&amp;#39;t until later we knew that what he referred to was the Soviet Union Chinese Communist leaders believed that the revolution would be led as Marx had written by workers in the cities but a small group in the party believed the key to Revolution lay in the countryside where most of China&amp;#39;s people lived this Renegade group was based in D Jang XI Province it was led by Ma zong Mao came from a prosperous peasant family he was a founding member of the Communist Party he had worked with the nationalists at the military academy in Canton training students to organize peasants after janek&amp;#39;s Purge Mau returned to the Countryside by 1927 he and a small group were organizing peasants in jangi Province conditions made the area a fertile ground for communist [Music] activities foree [Music] speee in South China there were huge gaps between rich and poor rents were high and taxes were often collected decades in advance landlords were called the masters of the earth one of the four Tyrant landlords by the name of Joe came to our house and saw my 15-year-old sister and took her to be his wife he not only wanted to take my sister he also wanted me to be his maid I was only seven my father refused so he demanded $1,000 silver dollars to buy aade instead my father didn&amp;#39;t know what to to do rather than let me be a maid my father sold me as a child bride people told me if I joined the revolution I would have my freedom I could choose who I wanted to marry if I didn&amp;#39;t join I&amp;#39;d have to marry this man who was over 30 so I thought if revolution could save me from this I would join the Communists organized peasant Association and began social reforms their actions Unleashed pent up hatred of local landlords and violent class struggles soon errupted we smashed the landlord&amp;#39;s opium pipes and took away his grain and clothes he started looking for his money the landlord wasn&amp;#39;t home his wife was hiding in the Attic where rice straw was stored we found found her we questioned her for several days and then we killed her we gave the grain to those who had nothing to eat some got about 50 some got 100 we gave the clothes to those who just didn&amp;#39;t have any so the poor were really eager to join us by 1930 the Communists had set up a government in jangi Mao had joined forces with juder another veteran revolutionary their men formed the Red Army which leoan sha joined I often saw chairman ma he was tall and thin when he went out he rode a white horse we didn&amp;#39;t have cars then when he went to work he would be followed by eight security guards three to carry lanterns and two to carry his lunchbox he wouldn&amp;#39;t eat in someone&amp;#39;s home he took his meals wherever he went sometimes when there was a meeting he would stand on a mound and Shout slogans he would shout advance to n Jang advance to n king take Janai Sheek alive although the Communist area was relatively small many nationalists were frightened by the violent events there Jen Kai Sheek was concerned the people under attack the middle and upper classes were the base of his support he launched a series of military campaigns in jangi they were defeated our main forces would lure their troops lure them into the mountains like we did in the battle at long gang we would lure them in and then pull back this is called pulling back your fist before you strike it was like drawing them into a bag and suddenly would surround them and wipe them out understand would lure the enemy deep deep into the Soviet area and then suddenly surround them we wiped out their 18th division this way all 9,000 of them from the commander down to the cooks not one escape this is called mobile or gorilla Warfare jang&amp;#39;s forces were defeated by these Guerilla tactics four times but he continued to attack in 1934 he launched an ideological offensive called the new life movement a mixture of traditional Confucian values and European fascism he hoped to create a disciplined and orderly Society by reforming social behavior people were instructed to button their clothes stand straight and to eat noisily the movement only reached a small section of the middle class and failed to solve The Peasants problems but jang&amp;#39;s fifth military campaign was a success in an allout effort Jang had gathered nearly 1 million soldiers and all the military Machinery he could muster and he changed tactics we adopted the tactic of moving step by step the stronghold tactic do you understand for instance I could walk 20 miles a day but instead of 20 I would only do 10 then I would stop and dig trenches and build blockhouses since the Communists didn&amp;#39;t have cannons they couldn&amp;#39;t take well-defended blockhouses so our troops worked very hard to build them and we wouldn&amp;#39;t advance until a place was firmly in our control this was how we tightened our strangle hold on the Communists as the nationalists began their new tactics the Communists changed theirs that was when our party made one of its biggest mistakes the biggest what happened was that the Communist International sent an advisor leader whose original name was AO BR he claimed that the Golden Age of Guerilla Warfare was over and that it was now time to develop positional and regular Warfare when Ma heard this he realized that he and leer would never agree and after that Ma didn&amp;#39;t go to any more meetings of the military committee Communist Party leaders supported Otto Bron the German comter representative Mao lost his position as head of the government and his Guerilla tactics were abandoned then we used Block House Warfare to deal with their Block House Warfare it was TI for T but of course it didn&amp;#39;t work they had planes and cannons we had nothing so the Communist area shrank and shrank the nationalists were winning the Communists had already lost much popular support because of their violent class struggle by the summer of 1934 they were losing badly we were being killed off the revolution wasn&amp;#39;t plain sailing there were people who wavered and were traitors they saw the situation was going from bad to worse and they changed with the wind communist organizers were arrested by the nationalists a nationalist official wanted to bail me out of prison to force me to be his concubine I didn&amp;#39;t want to but they threatened me saying if you won&amp;#39;t we&amp;#39;ll put a firecracker in your vagina and light it aren&amp;#39;t you afraid sitting or standing I was just as tall as anyone else why should I be someone&amp;#39;s concubine I didn&amp;#39;t want to but what could I do finally they took a red hot wire this long and forced it through my leg one from this side and then from that side they put the hot wire through my leg I still have the scars I was hung up by the arms I was tortured three times and then they let me me down I was too numb to feel any pain my interrogation went on from 9:00 in the morning till 4: in the afternoon then they dragged me back to my cell and said tomorrow we&amp;#39;ll send a platoon of soldiers and rape you to death that really frightened me I wasn&amp;#39;t afraid of being killed but how could I stand being raped though they were just threatening me they really made it look real when I was taken out the next morning there really was a platoon of soldiers waiting the officer said just look at those men if you don&amp;#39;t confess you&amp;#39;ll be raped to death right here I said I don&amp;#39;t know who is a communist and I&amp;#39;m not a communist leader I&amp;#39;m just a laundry woman I didn&amp;#39;t tell them a thing and in the end they sent me to the concentration camp at Jo Jang they never got anything out of my mouth in October 1934 nearly 87,000 Communists broke out of the Nationalist blockade they began a forced Retreat which became known to the world as the Long March for over a year they walked an average of 17 mil a day often through hostile territory nationalist troops chased them much of the time the soldiers crossed 24 rivers and climbed 18 mountain ranges and they walked more than 6,000 miles for the survivors it is remembered as one enormous battle going on [Music] forever by the time we got to the xang river we had lost half our troops we lost 30 to 40,000 people they weren&amp;#39;t battle casualties we lost them on the road we were on the March day and night everyone was complaining bitterly we didn&amp;#39;t know where we were going chairman Mau was out of power he marched with the troops when they reached tuni meetings were held Otto Bron and his supporters claimed that the nationalists had won because they were stronger Mao said it was because Braun&amp;#39;s tactics were wrong for the first time Joe and lie openly cited with ma Joe and Li disagreed Joe did not think we had lost because of the enemy&amp;#39;s strength but because of our own strategic and tactical mistakes since we had won in the past then ma spoke the atmosphere was calm everyone was [Music] reasonable in the end most decided that leer and Bou were wrong most people agree with Ma&amp;#39;s ideas and Ved ma is our leader on the Long March we were so happy we called an office meeting we had a meal two dishes we were banging on the tables with our Chopsticks yeah yeah banging on the tables we were so happy we were dancing we supported Mao that&amp;#39;s what it was like I&amp;#39;m telling you the meeting was a victory for Ma and his belief in Guerilla tactics he became the leader of the Long March and soon of the entire Communist Party Oto Bron lost his influence from this time on the Chinese Communists received virtually no help from the Soviet Union the March went on the soldiers continued to face the threat of Relentless nationalist attack and nature which was often just as lethal when they crossed the snowy mountains most of the troops who came from the South were completely unprepared it was snowing and there were hail storms arms I had to stop because it was too slippery and if I fell off the edge it would be all over and it would be easy to fall off so I decided to take my shoes off and walk Barefoot when my feet touched the snow ah it was impossible the coldness started from my feet and slowly climbed up my legs my legs went numb I couldn&amp;#39;t walk then I saw y Chen Ching he was wearing a pair of straw sandals and he had an extra pair he couldn&amp;#39;t stop walking so he just threw the sandals to me and kept going by then the cold was already up to here when it gets to your heart you die after I put on the straw sandals I stamped my feet for a few minutes and I could feel my legs again and I could walk I still have a photo of [Music] us if it weren&amp;#39;t for him I&amp;#39;d have died in 35 in the snowy mountains hundreds did die of cold altitude sickness and exhaustion the shared hardships forged fir bonds between the soldiers and earned ma unswerving loyalty M Zedong gave me his ration to eat three little steamed buns in a little bowl this big at first I didn&amp;#39;t know that it was ma in one bite I ate two of them when I found out it was his meal I stopped eating he said you must eat you still have to March you forced me to eat the last one Som was very kind very kind to his subordinates he took good care of us the Army now had to cross the grasslands more people died here than on any other part of the March there was nothing there absolutely nothing as far as you could see all there was was Marsh the endless Marsh no trees no houses nothing stepping on the grass was like stepping on bean curd it was soft from time to time someone stepped in the wrong spot and fell into the mud if he fell in up to here it was all over when the mud was up to your chest no one could save you you could die at any second you just couldn&amp;#39;t tell we finally got hold of a newspaper and learned that there was a communist base in Northern chanii Province it was only then that we decided to go there we needed to rest and regroup we knew it was extremely poor there but we had nowhere else to go the Communists reached yanan the end of the Long March in the fall of 1935 95% of the Red Army had been lost [Music] but Mao didn&amp;#39;t lose confidence he asked us a question although there are now only six or 7,000 of us left are we stronger or weaker than before his answer was that we were stronger he said the people who remained were gold [Music] Jen Kai Sheek had nearly wiped out the Communists but he faced another threat a foreign threat which many considered more dangerous than the Communists Japan for years Japan had had economic interests in North China and manua throughout the 1920s it expanded its interests and defended them with increasingly hostile military activity Japan&amp;#39;s aim was to colonized China the Japanese posed the Great greatest threat to the warlord of the region Jang shalang Jang shalang was one of the most powerful men in China he was the General iso&amp;#39;s second in command and he retained his own huge well equipped Army in September 1931 the Japanese attacked Jang shuliang troops we bore the brunt of the attack the Brigade Commander gave orders first he telephoned me and asked me about the situation then he gave the order don&amp;#39;t resist you are not permitted to resist I pointed out that the enemy had already begun to attack he said then collect the solders weapons and hide them in the storehouse I said that there was no way I could collect the solders weapons and hide them when the enemy was shelling us he said then why don&amp;#39;t you withdraw I said I have only received an order to offer no resistance I have no order to withdraw he said it would be better if you withdraw otherwise you will be held responsible then the phone was cut off the Chinese troops did not resist and the Japanese quickly seized control of all of Manchuria Jenai Sheek afraid the Japanese military would crush China had chosen a policy of non-resistance his Deputy Commander Jang shuliang protested the situation many held him responsible others believed he had received orders from Jan Kai Sheek and they blamed the government we should have resisted if I had been Brigade Commander I would not have withdrawn I would have resisted resisted until daylight when a foreign army attacks the cities of another country in broad daylight I don&amp;#39;t think that can be justified to the world we have a saying an army is maintained for a thousand days to be used for one why didn&amp;#39;t they fight I was very angry the Japanese used Chinese protests as an excuse to attack [Music] Shanghai this time there was hardfought resistance hello everybody this is p Gibbon speaking this was the last stand the last barricade of the Chinese forces of the 19th root Army that opposed the advance of the Japanese Marines through these ruins hardly a month ago families lived in these places fathers and mothers and children this was all that they had in the world in that part of CHA occupied by the Japanese all means of communication are being destroyed all Chinese found in this quarter are forced to undergo a thorough search as snipers possession of arms is taken as conclusive evidence of guilt and the punishment is certain death a ceasefire was declared in Shanghai but prospects for peace were dim on March 1st 1932 Japan set up a puppet government in Manchuria which they renamed manchuko they installed the former boy Emperor Pui now a young man as head of state the Chinese were angered and humiliated by the Japanese attacks and by the government&amp;#39;s response these feelings were expressed in demonstrations the Arts and in feature films come [Music] stop [Music] but demonstrations against Japan were quickly suppressed by the government Jan Kai Sheek was afraid these disturbances would provoke another attack which China would not survive we weren&amp;#39;t ready we couldn&amp;#39;t let a little event trigger a war between China and Japan before we were ready to fight the best way out was to persuade the Japanese to give up the idea of invasion we tried everything the Nationalist policy was that to resist foreign aggression the country first needs internal pacification this was stated by Jang gek and it was in all the papers it was absolutely necessary to wipe out the Communists before we could fight Japan it&amp;#39;s a new country Mao and Juda knew that Jang would strike while they were still weak from the Long March in an effort to prevent this and to harness popular anti-japanese feeling Mao called for the nationalists to unite with the Communists against Japan ma declared we cannot even discuss communism if we are robbed of a country in which to practice it but Jang continued his plans to attack the Communists again Jang shuang seen here next to Jang disagreed he and his men only wanted to fight Japan to recover their Homeland but they could not make the general isimo change his mind in December 1936 in a desperate act which shocked the country D Jang shuang ordered his Commander kidnapped sun mingju and some heavily armed soldiers stormed chek&amp;#39;s residence when I got to the bedroom I saw that it was a mess and no one was there I felt janek&amp;#39;s bed it was still warm so I knew he hadn&amp;#39;t been gone long so we went up and behind the hill I saw him squeezed between two rocks it was a spot that everyone called tiger stone rock he was standing there he was very frightened his face was covered with dirt he was in pajamas because he hadn&amp;#39;t had time to get dressed I saluted and said please General isimo come quickly I was afraid that someone might shoot him I felt a heavy responsibility the day he was kidnapped our Central Committee immediately held me meetings in the evening we held an emergency meeting everyone was trying to figure out how to save him Madame Jang flew to xan Jang Kai Sheek feared he would be put on trial and executed if anything should happen to Mr Chang no one in China would be able to fight Japan nobody would be able to stop Jaan ja and the Japanese would certainly March into China that would be certain no one would resist old China watched as his fate hung in the [Music] balance Shanghai China the Paris of the Orient in news reel of the 1920s and 30s life here looked fun an exotic mix of east and west yeah the reality of China was different most Chinese lived in the country where their lives continued largely Untouched by the 20th [Music] century but the people of China were about to be engulfed in years of violent conflict years which would dramatically change their country and their [Music] [Music] lives in these years China&amp;#39;s leader Jang Kai Sheek faced two major threats to his power the Communists led by Mount Zong and the Japanese they controlled most of North China and planned a fullscale Invasion many Chinese demanded that jang&amp;#39;s government fight Japanese aggression but he was afraid the Japanese military would crush China and he refused in December 1936 anti-japanese feeling boiled over and created an astonishing crisis Jang KK&amp;#39;s Deputy in an effort to force his Commander to resist Japan kidnapped [Music] him new Thunder Over China a storm which the world fears through the team faces the shocking news of the kidnapping of Shang kek who is given credit for unifying the nation some say the most ominous kidnapping in history which threatens World catastrophe and now again the whole world as the world waited Madame Jang flew to be with her husband Jo and live for the Communists went to help negotiate the negotiations went on day after day finally Jang was released everyone had recognized that he was the only man who could lead the country and he had at last agreed to work with his old enemies the Communists against Japan it was the beginning of the united front mong&amp;#39;s Communists and Jang Kai sh&amp;#39;s nationalists would stand up to Japanese aggression together [Music] here&amp;#39;s where it started the Marco Polo Bridge a few miles Southwest of ping on July 7th 1937 fighting broke out on this bridge between Chinese and Japanese troops within days Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China it was the beginning of World War II in Asia the Japanese easily overpowered United Chinese resistance they took Beijing in days and then tin in the Japanese swept inland [Music] in October 1937 they arrived outside Maya Village a few miles from these [Music] scenes Japanese Devils entered our Village from the West West Side they started killing and burning their way through the village they were just brutal they killed 46 families and even every animal they saw then they got to my home we were hiding in the cellar Japanese Devil shot into the cellar we children all cried I want to get out I want to get out when my father got up three Devils stripped him to the waist and tied him up he was tied up with more than 10 other men I was put in the pit it was full of people they&amp;#39;d been there a long time the Japanese kept bringing more and more people I was there for hours later about another 200 people were pushing the pit was [Music] full bullets were whistling a bullet hit my hand felt numb and hot didn&amp;#39;t hurt I didn&amp;#39;t move it got dark I ran away the Japanese killed and burned for three days and nights then they left my grandfather and mother started looking for my father&amp;#39;s body they found it in that big pit there were bullet holes in his chest he was killed by the Japanese Devils when I got home I pushed the door open it was quiet no one was there I wondered what had happened to them I looked everywhere and I couldn&amp;#39;t find them I went outside I saw that there was fresh Earth in the courtyard I thought someone must be buried in it and I went over to the well the winch had been torn out people were in there too I asked a couple of people to help me I found my grandmother mother and two sons buried in the [Music] earth I pulled my wife and three-year-old out of the well I hadn&amp;#39;t seen them for just a few days and now none of them could ever talk to me again it was too horrible I buried them that&amp;#39;s all VOA Shanghai was bombarded there were huge civilian casualties nationalist troops fought hard but they were forced to retreat Shanghai fell in November 1937 in just 5 months the Japanese had captured half of China&amp;#39;s Seaboard Jang kek and his wife appealed to the world for support to you who are enjoying the Serenity and security of your own homes I wish to bring a message from the women of War ridden China it is this if you wish to avoid the calamities that are befalling China now and the killing and mutilation of your loved ones and your fellow beings boycott Japanese Goods the battle for the capital Nang King was fierce again the Japanese overpowered nationalist resistance in December 1937 the Japanese entered the city and they began to butcher civilians an estimated 200,000 men women and children were massacred it was called the rape of Nang King by June 1938 Chang was desperate he ordered the dkes of the Yellow River broken hoping the flood would stop the Japanese forces the people in the area were not warned for them it was catastrophic 11 cities and thousands of villages were flooded Millions were made homeless hundreds of thousands died and the Japanese continued they had taken all of janek&amp;#39;s power base now he adopted classical military strategy to trade space for time taking advantage of China&amp;#39;s huge size the government and the Army retreated thousands of miles [Music] Inland schools universities and businesses followed and [Music] people from all over occupied China Millions left their homes and fled in a massive Exodus the government moved to Chun King in Sichuan [Music] Province it was a remote undeveloped region ruled by Warlords and had never been under jang&amp;#39;s control the Japanese bomb junking for weeks at a time the war effort was hopelessly under supplied and underfunded Jang shored up his government with propaganda and parades to boost Mor Madame Jenai Sheek toured hospitals and orphanages Chung King held on many other Chinese traveled to the Northwest to yanan where the Communists had set up their headquarters after the Long March they came because they wanted to fight Japan and because there was a sense here of building a new Society the atmosphere of these early days is remembered as one of enthusiasm and exuberance the yanan spirit yanan was still small enough that most people had contact with the leadership Mao was developing some of his most important theoretical work he was adapting Marxism to conditions in China his theories were studied by all who came to yanan I went to the anti-japanese University in yanan in the fall of 1938 we had classes on current affairs philosophy and so on none of us minded the hard conditions at night we shared huge beds each person had just this little space about a foot one next to the other we got up early in the morning we did morning drill and we learned how to use weapons to fight the Japanese the term was only a few months long then we would be sent to the front and we sang the [Music] song from yanan the young people were sent to work in villages throughout North China and Manchuria they recruited anyone who would resist Japan they also changed the face of North China by initiating moderate reforms reducing land rent and taxes they held elections and introduced voting the Communists carefully built rural middle class support and they avoided the violent class struggle they had used in the past woman our slogan was if you have money give money if you have a gun give your gun and if you are healthy come and fight we didn&amp;#39;t attack the rich we even allied with landlords as long as they were not collaborators and wanted to resist I am from a rich farming family when the party started in our area why did they come to us who were upper class because the poor peasants couldn&amp;#39;t afford to give up their work in the fields besides they were not necessarily more Progressive than we were women were the most constrained by tradition even in the early 1940s many young girls still had their feet bound and they were often treated as virtual Slaves by their families for example a woman had no rights in her own family since she had no income she was dependent when someone knocked on the door asking is anyone home she would say no there&amp;#39;s no one here see she didn&amp;#39;t even think of herself as a person W shinan had married xiaa a young communist officer after work shua and I used to walk through the village holding hands sometimes after dinner we would just sit there talking and laughing they were very envious they said you must have done a lot of good in your previous life for God to have given you such a good husband I said that&amp;#39;s got nothing to do with it it&amp;#39;s because women like me have changed our political status we&amp;#39;re independent people Among Us men and women are equal we are equal even though he is the husband and I am the wife we tried to explain this to them it was all very surprising to them the Communist call to fight Japan combined with their moderate social reforms had a powerful appeal throughout North China the party established a solid base of support and the resistance they organized was effective youngang hung describes how he and a friend ambushed a Japanese regiment which came to their Village these two areas had more than 10 landmines when the enemy came we triggered the mines they got blown up on both sides we wouldn&amp;#39;t let the bastards get away the enemy came towards us and the two of us were really happy the guy with me was called Fung her I said what about it Fung her you get the officer I&amp;#39;ll get the guy over there fur aimed at the Japanese officer bang he got him right in the head he killed over I pulled my trigger bang got another one the enemy sent a regiment with 100 cards they came to take our weat but we didn&amp;#39;t lose any their carts didn&amp;#39;t go back empty They Carried the bodies of 60 dead Devils the Japanese responded to communist resistance with a campaign of Terror called burn all kill all loot all they decimated any village with communist connections and fragmented communist control of the region the Communists and nationalists were still officially fighting Japan together Bound by the united front but there were frequent clashes between the two sides in January 1941 nationalist forces suddenly attacked a communist unit the unit was wiped out it was the end of the united front Mao sent a message to Jenai Sheek those who who play with fire ought to be careful if things continue to develop this way all the people of the country will throw you into the gutter jang&amp;#39;s response to a journalist was the Japanese are a disease of the skin the Communists are a disease of the heart Chung King the Japanese continued to bomb Jang KK&amp;#39;s wartime capital by December 1941 the war had been going on for nearly 5 years nationalist armies had taken beating after beating Japan was winning the war Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war on Japan I knew then that Japan was bound to be defeated bound to lose the war today we the people of the United States fighting a desperate rear guard action against the Japs grimly realized that our future depends upon holding a fighting China as our Ally well may we Ponder what might happen if China should fall if the full force of Japan now deadlocked in China were released to strike into India into Australia into Mexico or Canada or California despite the propaganda the Allies gave China low priority they were struggling to survive the war in Europe General Joseph Stillwell was named the top American commander in China Stillwell had lived in China and he spoke the language his job was to keep China in the war and improve its fighting capacity he commanded Chinese troops and he believed that properly trained they would be among the best in the world but he railed against the Nationalist command he would speak in expletives to me about the Chinese generalship uh because he would find them pigheaded uh vacillating they change their mind uh and again Jang would not want to commit a a large Force to gain an objective he would send it in in driblets and it would then be consumed by the Japanese in driblets Stillwell found that the general lisimo was unwilling to commit his troops against the Japanese because he was saving them for use against the Chinese Communists he had 500,000 of his best troops blockading the area occupied by the Chinese Communists Stillwell soon saw the Chinese war effort was hampered by another problem corruption it started at the top with jang&amp;#39;s Inner Circle his wife&amp;#39;s family and a handful of his oldest friends they controlled the economy and made enormous profits from their positions Jang himself was never accused of corruption but he did nothing to stop it and it spread to all levels in the Nationalist government those it hurt most were the ordinary soldiers Stillwell was trying to command conscripts were treated brutally they were afraid we would run away so they would tie five or six men together on the same rope that&amp;#39;s how we traveled we were strung up in groups I saw hundreds of our conscripts strung up and pulled Along on ropes at night to stop them running away they tied their legs I saw it with my own eyes the nationalists had corrupt officers they put sand in the rice to replace what they had taken we ate moldy rice with a lot of sand in it they said we were drafted to fight Japan and defend our homeland if they really meant it why didn&amp;#39;t they give us food and clothes why was there corruption poverty if America didn&amp;#39;t have enough food clothing corruption would exist there too as the Chinese saying goes only when one has food and clothing no ethics nearly 1 and a half million men died of starvation or illness before ever reaching their units one out of every 10 men drafted during the war still well in the the Foreign Service officers filed reports about nationalist corruption and other problems to no avail nationalist censorship and the American media bolstered jang&amp;#39;s image well known to every American is lean Keen General isimo Chang taek Undisputed leader and Idol of 450 millions of Chinese in 1943 Madame Jang visited the United States and Charmed Congress and the public let us not for for get that Japan in her occupied areas today has greater resources at her command than Germany let us not forget that during the first four and a half years of total aggression China has borne Japan&amp;#39;s sadistic Fury uned and alone she repeatedly requested huge amounts of money and supplies for the government when the US Treasury expressed reservations Jang threatened to sign A Separate Peace with Japan and so millions of dollars were sent no one had to account for the money and much of it simply disappeared to be fair I must say that in any government at any time there will be situations we don&amp;#39;t like some unfair and illegal Behavior this can happen in any country any government at any time especially during a period of bad economic conditions after years of war naturally some people are tempted by material things in August 1944 a group of American officers flew deep into Northwest China to yanan anxious to improve China&amp;#39;s fighting capacity Stillwell and the American government wanted to know if the Communists could be used effectively in the war the Foreign Service officers who went to yanan were called the Dixie Mission it was the first official Western recognition of the Communists my first impressions well madun was a large even then slightly tending towards plump individual with a very smooth face no facial hair been noticed um and he uh uh was not what you would call charismatic he was straightforward did not dwell on polite phrases at all but there was no question that he was the boss everyone was differential to him including people like Joe and Li and Drew dur they uh they looked to him and when he spoke no dog Bart Mao was now the Undisputed leader of the Communists the year before Mal Zedong thought had become their official ideology no criticism of Communist Party policies was tolerated [Music] the Communists wanted to create a good impression for they wanted American help in the immediate struggle against Japan and they hoped for long-term support when the war was over the American officers spent a year in yanan assessing the Communist organization and their military potential apart from from a few Russian advisers they saw no evidence of Soviet support with full US Government approval the Americans instructed the Communists on strategy and weaponry they watched Guerilla tactics they traveled out from yanan and watched the Communists attack Japanese blockhouses they saw that the Communists controlled huge areas in the countryside of North and Central China Patrick Hurley President Roosevelt&amp;#39;s personal representative visited his mission was to mediate between Jang and the Communists when Hurley arrived in yanan the the plane sat down and uh the door was flung open and there stood Hurley and his major generals uniform you know glistening in his white mustachios and his 6&amp;#39;3 and he let out a choa war hoop and of course uh the the Chinese are much too courteous to to stand and say what goes on you know they just I suppose they assume that this is the way foreign Devils behave when they appear upon a scene somewhere China was a very complex phenomenon uh and it really baffled him I think he had great difficulty with identifying who the various Chinese were uh he had maong was Mustang uh and the nicknames that grew up there in an attempt to uh uh identify people uh was a very clear indication that he really was somewhat at Sea shall we say despite cordial appearances Hurley&amp;#39;s mediation went badly and led to deep communist mistrust of him Hurley supported Jen kek and did not seem to take the Communist seriously the Foreign Service officers made a different assessment I reported on the Communists after my visit there that uh I thought that they would probably win in China uh and the reason I think that that would happen is they had the popular support uh I mentioned I think at the time that that they were a democratic force that was a that was a misnomer they were a popular force and they had a popular support and only in that sense were they Democratic relations between Jang and Stillwell were deteriorating Stillwell on behalf of the American government demanded that Jang make sweeping changes in his army Stillwell talked about the bad things in jang&amp;#39;s government and jang&amp;#39;s arrogance he also asked that part of jang&amp;#39;s troops be placed under his Direct Control and that Americans be appointed high ranking officers Janek did not accept that but all those were not the main disagreements the biggest agreement was that Stillwell wanted to send weapons to the Communists to arm communist troops which was the last thing Jang Kai Sheek wanted Jang demanded Stillwell&amp;#39;s recall John Davies asked for a transfer almost every American officer with in-depth experience in China was fired or resigned Jang now had Undisputed control of China&amp;#39;s war effort Stillwell was replaced by General wedm who was much more sympathetic to Jang and the war with Japan was soon to be over in August 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the Japanese surrendered in the victory celebrations Jang was the hero of China but the quick end of the war left an important question unresolved who would take the japanes jaes surrender in North China the Communists raced to get their armies North nationalist troops were airlifted by America to arrive first general Lu janga remembers what Mao said about jenek he wants to come down the mountain to harvest peaches that&amp;#39;s what ma said our people and our army had made great sacrifices behind the Japanese lines so we wanted to take the surrender in those areas I rode all night back to the front you couldn&amp;#39;t say we were harvesting peaches but we did want to taste a few Civil War seemed inevitable Patrick Hurley now US ambassador in China persuaded Mao to go to Chun King for talks with Jang the two men had not met in nearly 20 years since the days of ssen in Canton Jang addressed Mao as elder brother and Mao made the toast Long Live changai Sheek but the talks LED nowhere President Truman did not give up he sent General George Marshall to mediate an agreement was signed and then quickly broke down the Civil War began at first it went badly for the Communists in March 194 47 Mao announced to his troops that they would withdraw from yanan because of a successful nationalist advance but yanan was only a symbol and not the base of their power their real power lay in the vast Countryside of North China and Manchuria it had been built up during the war with Japan when moderate reforms had attracted support from all economic levels of society now the Communist leadership decided to expand their support by concentrating on the poor they launched a radical Land Reform movement attacking their old allies in the prosperous middle class class in Leela chei house we first drove out his cattle and pigs then we took all the furniture cabinets and Trunks out of his house we took all his clothes too after that we shut him up in a small room and told him to write a confession then the people wanted to struggle with him they shouted Lei you must confess honestly who did you exploit how much money have you piled up where have you hidden it you must confess we struggled with him for a long time he had buried his silver dollars underground we got him to confess where he had hidden the money as the poor divided up the land of the prosperous many Communists were Torn Between the demands of the party and of their families even veteran party members were attacked when the reforms came you had to go along with them because I was a party member I had to take the lead my parents didn&amp;#39;t agree with me even though they were in charge of the family property they had to listen to me at the time of the Land Reform my family had a new cart a horse a donkey and about 5 acres of land we had a large family and enough food and so one night they sealed up our house all the landlords and Rich peasants were locked up in one spot before the mass rally I went and saw the situation was no good I was afraid the struggle meeting might go wild I was scared the meeting began my father was Wong D and they tied him to a post everyone in the village was there and then they went crazy some innocent people got beaten and some bad people got beaten Village leaders tried to control the mob they even sat on the landlords to keep them from being torn apart what they did was wrong they ignored the facts if you weren&amp;#39;t poor if you were better off then you were guilty that&amp;#39;s how they reasoned Land Reform had become mob rule it tore families and Villages apart the Communists began to lose support in December 1947 Mau urged restraint 5 months later the movement was stopped the Communists tried to minimize the damage and backtrack to their moderate wartime policies they managed to salvage peasant support in the cities people&amp;#39;s lives had not improved after the war massive economic problems were undercutting jang&amp;#39;s support the government&amp;#39;s Financial policies were chaotic the currency system changed many times the old Fabby paper money was changed to the new Fabby paper money then that was changed to the gold un then when there weren&amp;#39;t enough gold un it was changed to the UN Shai silver dollars there was also gold and even American dollars were used the currency system was in complete chaos so when people got paid in the morning they would rush to buy things because prices would rise by the afternoon sometimes the price would double people had a rough time the homeless and starving filled city streets Black Market trading and Corruption were widespread to make matters worse in 1947 floods in the South destroyed the rice crop and in the north there was a devastating famine in response the United Nations relief agency sent millions of dollars in Aid America continued to send vast quantities of of War Surplus and millions more dollars to help Jang in his struggle against the Communists many were certain that jang&amp;#39;s family was embezzling huge amounts of this Aid he and his wife continued to ask for more in 1947 President Truman sent Albert wedm back to China to assess the situation although it was clear that jang&amp;#39;s government was corrupt and losing support for America there was no alternative wamy urged Jang to affect immediate drastic political and economic reforms at the same time he recommended more us Aid way de&amp;#39;s recommendation that we continue to support the government of Jan Kai Sheek has to be considered in the context of the times the times of the Cold War in which the Chinese Communists seem to be allied with the Russians and the hope that somehow or other military aid might contribute to the survival of Shan Kai schek government but American Aid could not win the war for Jang he made the crucial mistake of overextending his forces in the north the Communists responded with a change in tactics they mounted a major offensive against the Nationalist armies in the cities the change of tactics worked by November 1948 after only a month and a half the Communists won control of North China nationalist troops were crossing over to us in divisions and armies when we first got to the Northeast we had 100,000 troops now we were four or 500,000 strong our equipment all came from the United States and Jang Shack there was a joke among the soldiers they said that Chang was our best supplier of American weapons that was the joke they said that after we win we&amp;#39;ll give him a medal that weighs a ton because he did such a good job for us after 8 years of fighting Japan nobody wanted to fight anymore even I didn&amp;#39;t want to fight anymore Jen kek reprimanded me this war has to be fought if we don&amp;#39;t wipe out the Communists we&amp;#39;ll die without without a place to be buried we&amp;#39;ve got to go all out I couldn&amp;#39;t say anything to that he was my teacher my Academy commandant he had been my commanding officer for many years all I could do was [Music] obey with North China under communist control the battle for Central China be began W way LED Jen Kai&amp;#39;s cracked 12th Army our movements were slow our equipment was Heavy cumbersome we were fighting retreating and bringing up reinforcements simultaneously our formations were beaten back bit by bit we would be wiped out in one day two days time so I gave the order to flee that save some people December 15th we broke out in several places my Deputy commander and I got into a tank and fled we fled to a place about 15 miles fromang that evening the evening of December 15th the tank I was in broke down couldn&amp;#39;t move so we got out and fled on foot the Communists were everywhere and they caught me I became their prisoner the nationalists failed because we completely lost the people&amp;#39;s support I had heard that during the northern Expedition the people gave us flowers and food during the war against Japan the people provided intelligence and helped us resist the Japanese once the Civil War started we couldn&amp;#39;t find anyone to give us even Road directions there is a saying in China the water that carries the boat can also overturn it on January 21st 1949 11 days after the battle for Central China Jang kek resigned in Shanghai people were leaving in drov Jan kek and his government retreated to the island of Taiwan it was carefully planned they took a huge part of China&amp;#39;s art treasures and all of the Central Bank Reserves us Aid followed the last shipments of arms and ammunitions were sent to Taiwan not to China the government of Jang kashik had already made its preparations for transfer to Taiwan so we never stopped supporting Jang kek Jang did not give up all hope my father&amp;#39;s first order was for us to examine our past mistakes both domestic and international secondly we should prepare to recover the mainland he never said we should fight our way back what we should do was help the people on the mainland overthrow the regime so we&amp;#39;ve been making preparations based on this order since the first day in Taiwan the war continued without Jang kek the Communists prepared to cross the Yi River heading for Nanking and Shanghai [Music] they quickly overcame nationalist defenses with the Communists just outside Shanghai the remaining nationalist police stepped up their anti-communist activities [Music] [Applause] my husband had been arrested by the nationalists and I couldn&amp;#39;t find him I was both happy and worried at the same time happy because the revolution would soon succeed that was obvious and worried because my husband had been arrested and we didn&amp;#39;t know where he [Music] was [Music] [Applause] [Music] fore [Applause] on October 1st 1949 we listened to the radio we heard the ceremony of the founding of the People&amp;#39;s Republic of China chairman ma proclaimed that the Chinese people had stood up all of us were Overjoyed we jumped around we were really proud and [Music] [Applause] happy my daughters were very young they asked why there was so much excitement I told them they would understand when they were older as for me it was the day I&amp;#39;d been working for all my life [Music] October 1st I was locked up in the war criminals prison I had no desire to go on living but I couldn&amp;#39;t just die I was very stubb I really couldn&amp;#39;t change the way I thought so I was locked up in thought reform for 27 years this man I think he was a great man he was a hero but his meth methods were the old ones of China and he lost I put my life on the line for him in the end I was buried alive for him you could say I was loyal to him to the end loyal to the end I felt Happy on the one hand because I had been looking forward to Liberation so much and it had come at last that&amp;#39;s what the on the other hand I felt sad for my husband was dead but then we thought that people always die in Revolution no death no victory [Music] foree [Music] e [Music] [Applause] [Music] major funding for this program was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities additional funding was provided by the John D and Katherine T MacArthur Foundation The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the New York County for the Humanities this is PBS

Transcript for:Revolution and Civil War in Early 20th Century China

Transcript for:
Revolution and Civil War in Early 20th Century China