What was the trigger for the tremendous patriotic and democratic movement in the Kuomintang region?

Mondo History Updated on 2024-01-29

As a result of the all-out civil war waged by the Kuomintang, not only did it suffer a series of military defeats, but the economic situation in the areas under its rule also deteriorated dramatically.

The closure of factories caused a significant decline in industrial production. In 1947, industrial production in the Kuomintang region, including the factories of the four major families, was 10 percent lower than in 1936, before World War II.

The collapse of industry and commerce and the drastic decline in industrial production have plunged industry and commerce in the Kuomintang region into a state of serious paralysis, thus hastening the collapse of the entire national economy.

In agriculture, because the United States dumped a large amount of agricultural products into China, which dealt a serious blow to China's agricultural production, the people's excesses and miscellaneous taxes and the dispatch of soldiers and husbands caused the countryside to be barren, the population to flow out, and the death of cultivated animals, which seriously damaged agricultural production in the nationalized areas and sharply reduced agricultural output.

According to the data released by the Kuomintang, in 1945, the national land levy was 59 million quintals, and in 1946 it soared to 11,75670,000 quintals, an increase of more than 4 times compared with the amount before the Anti-Japanese War.

The Kuomintang also requisitioned peasants' grain at a very low price, which was only 1 5 or even 1 10 of the market price.

In addition, loans were forcibly expropriated from peasants. This kind of requisition and borrowing is tantamount to confiscation.

In addition to paying land taxes, the peasants also bear heavy burdens of military rations and a wide variety of exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes and assessments; in some provinces and autonomous regions, there are as many as 240 kinds of taxes in name and purpose, and other miscellaneous taxes, such as allowances for the chief of the security guard, are even more numerous.

The vast number of peasants often make ends meet and live a life of hunger and cold.

In addition, the Kuomintang indiscriminately seized strong men, the dumping of agricultural products in the United States, and the forced purchase of agricultural and sideline products by the bureaucratic capital of the four major families at a bargaining price, and so on, the agricultural production in the Kuomintang-ruled areas was in a depression, and agricultural output fell sharply.

Total paddy production in 1946 was about 77.2 million quintals less than in 1936 and about 14.2 million quintals in 1947 compared to 1946.

Wheat in 1946 was about 49.95 million quintals less than in 1936, and in 1947 it was much less than in 1946.

The yield per unit area of rice decreased from 355 catties per mu in 1936 to 339 catties in 1946, and even to 247 catties in 1947.

The yield of wheat per mu dropped from 151 catties in 1936 to 140 catties in 1946, and even to 138 catties in 1947.

The whole crop was 80 percent less in 1946 than in 1936, and 33 to 40 percent less in 1947.

The rural economy declined sharply, and agricultural production in 1946 was 8 percent 12 percent lower than in 1936, and in 1947 it fell to 33 percent.40

In the vast rural areas, hungry people are everywhere, and people at the time exclaimed: China did not die in Japan, but now it will die in the total collapse of the economy!

Due to the serious economic crisis in the Kuomintang region, the workers have lost their jobs, the peasants have gone bankrupt, and the broad masses of the people are living in dire straits, struggling on the line of life and death all year round.

In 1947, there were nearly 2 million unemployed and semi-unemployed workers in Shanghai, 180,000 unemployed workers in Chongqing, 70,000 in Tianjin and Qingdao, and a large number of unemployed people in other large, medium, and small cities.

The situation of the peasant masses was even worse, and in 1946 there was a famine not seen in decades, and tens of millions of people were affected.

A farmer in Zhejiang who participated in the rice grabbing said: "We don't have a grain of rice in our stomachs, so please open your belly and take a look." ”

The serious consequences of the Kuomintang ruling clique's policy of civil war, as well as the clique's own corruption and wanton expropriation of the people, have brought profound disasters to the broad masses of the people and plunged themselves into a serious political and economic crisis.

The deepening of the crisis will inevitably cause dissatisfaction and resistance among the people of all strata, and the people's resentment in the areas ruled by the Kuomintang is boiling, and the upsurge of the people's revolution is rising.

At the end of 1946, when the military and civilians in the liberated areas won major victories in the war of self-defense, the people in the Kuomintang-ruled areas set off a tremendous patriotic and democratic movement.

Marked by the outbreak of the **US military atrocity movement at the end of December 1946, the struggle between the patriotic and democratic movement with the student masses as the vanguard and the Kuomintang reactionary ** gradually formed a second front to cooperate with the People's Liberation War.

The anti-riot movement was triggered by the U.S. policy of supporting Chiang** and aiding Chiang's civil war.

In exchange for receiving US aid, the Kuomintang authorities signed a series of treaties or agreements with the United States** that humiliated the country, both openly and covertly.

With the privileges obtained in China, American goods poured into the Chinese market in a tidal wave and formed a monopoly position, with American capital accounting for 80% of all foreign capital in China.

Due to the connivance of the national **. It also stipulates that the US military police will only handle the accidents caused by the US military police in China, and that the US military will run amok and lawless everywhere in China.

From August 1945 to November 1946, there were at least 3,800 atrocities committed by US troops in the five cities of Shanghai, Nanjing, Beiping, Tianjin, and Qingdao, and more than 3,300 Chinese were killed and wounded.

These atrocities cannot but arouse the great national indignation of the Chinese people, who have been bullied and oppressed by imperialism for a long time.

Therefore, on December 24, 1946, the incident of an American person in a Chinese female college student in the Dongdan playground in Beiping became the fuse and triggered a massive mass movement of the atrocities committed by the US military in China.

On December 30, more than 5,000 students from Peking University, Tsinghua University, and other institutions of higher learning held a demonstration of the atrocities committed by the US military in Beiping, chanting slogans such as "US troops withdraw from China" and "safeguarding sovereignty and independence" along the way, which won warm sympathy from the general public.

Some young clerks and civil servants voluntarily joined the demonstrators. This demonstration not only broke the silence of the return to the ancient city of Beiping under the rule of the Kuomintang, but also set off a nationwide wave of anti-American struggle.

On December 31, the CCP instructed the underground party organizations in the Kuomintang-ruled areas to mobilize the masses in all major cities in response to Peiping***'s efforts to "create the broadest possible lineup and adopt a bold offensive to isolate the United States and Chiang and oppose the American colonization of China." ”

Party organizations in various localities adhered to the central slogan of "US troops withdrawing from China" and deepened the struggle.

Students in Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Taipei and other places also held rallies, strikes and demonstrations, and the total number of students who participated in the ** event reached 500,000.

Many scholars and well-known figures in cultural circles in Peiping, Shanghai, and other places have issued statements one after another, pointing out that the atrocities committed by the US military are an insult to the Chinese people, and that the students' actions "are fighting for personal personality and national dignity for the country."

The Shanghai Democratic Construction Association, the Association for the Advancement of Industry and Commerce, and the Chongqing Chamber of Commerce also issued statements expressing solidarity with the students' patriotic actions and demanding that the US military withdraw from China.

This has formed a broad movement of people with the nature of an anti-US and anti-Chiang united front. The anti-riot movement helped people understand the intrinsic connection between the United States' intervention in China and Chiang Kai-shek's rule and civil war policy, and gave a powerful impetus to the development of the patriotic democratic movement.

In order to maintain its rule, the Kuomintang intensified its repression of human movements. In response to this situation, on February 28, 1947, the CCP issued a directive drafted by *** on the work guidelines and struggle tactics in the Kuomintang-ruled areas.

The party organizations in the Kuomintang-ruled areas are required to expand propaganda, avoid hard encounters, win over middle-of-the-road elements, and strive to build a broad front against the elements, the civil war, and the spy terror on the basis of the struggle for survival.

In the course of the struggle, it is necessary to link, and sometimes to the economic struggle, in order to mobilize the wider masses to participate in it, and to obtain a legal form easily. With a broad foundation of economic struggle, it is also easy to link it with the struggle against spies and civil war.

War of Liberation [No. 25].

Demonstrations of the atrocities of the US military in those years.

About the Author. Since I was a child, I liked words, and when I was a primary school student, I often used to do sample essays. During the literary youth, many articles won awards. After decades of wind and rain, his hobby has not changed, he likes to read literature and history, insists on writing, and welcomes exchanges.

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