The Xinhai Revolution is more than 110 years ago, and its significance to Chinese history is very important. The Xinhai Revolution is divided into broad and narrow senses, usually referring to the period from the Wuchang Uprising to the establishment of the Chinese **Temporary**.
The Xinhai Revolution overthrew the feudal imperial system, established a republican form of government, promoted the Chinese people's ideological concept of democracy and republicanism, and promoted the ideological progress and liberation of the Chinese people. Its impact on Chinese history is extremely far-reaching.
Taking the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty as an example, the Xinhai Revolution was absolutely successful in this regard. And it's a great achievement.
Let's put it this way, in 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang unified China and established a centralized feudal dynasty, which ended the situation of the princes for 500 years and formed a conceptual China, compared to before, the feudal dynasty is a symbol of progress. We say that the Qin Dynasty was great.
After more than 2,000 years, the feudal dynasty has become a shackle to social progress, which is the inevitable development of history. One of the major achievements of the Xinhai Revolution was to smash this shackle, and from then on, the people of the world no longer had to kneel to the imperial power, and had themselves.
The following is a review of the background, process, impact and significance of the Xinhai Revolution.
Background
From the beginning of 1840 to 1905, the Qing Dynasty entered a period of rapid decline. In the past, the contradictions in the rule of feudal dynasties were either internal warlords or peasants, or neighboring aliens invaded the Central Plains. But by the end of the Qing Dynasty, it was facing a group of world powers.
In the past few decades, the Qing Dynasty has experienced major historical events such as the First and Second Opium Wars, the Sino-Japanese First Sino-Japanese War, and the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance.
This kind of situation is rare in the world. China is like a big piece of fat, not only jackals, tigers and leopards come to feast, but even flies and bugs dare to come and suck a few mouthfuls of blood.
At that time, who could stand anyone who had a little bit of national integrity and national concept?Change is inevitable.
Under the impetus of Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Tan Si and others, the young Qing Emperor Guangxu originally planned to change China's backward appearance, and in June 1898 issued more than 100 edicts to reform the bourgeois political reform.
The emperor stepped forward, the ministers took the lead, and the people hoped that this should have been an easy thing to do. But it turned out to be a failure, the emperor himself lost his freedom, several of the main figures of the reform were killed, and all the new policies that had been in place for more than three months were abolished.
On the surface, the failure of the Wuxu Reform was due to Guangxu's inability to defeat his "queen mother", but in essence, the emerging bourgeoisie was not strong enough to defeat the old system. This mild change can only be called reform, not revolution.
The Wuxu Reform Law was initiated within the Qing Dynasty, and if it succeeded, it is likely to develop into the model of the French Empire under Napoleon after the French "Coup d'état". But it failed.
Another change comes from civil society. Its demands were to drive out the Tartars, restore China, and establish a united nation**.
This is the program of the bourgeois-democratic revolution represented by Sun Yat-sen, and its essence is to overthrow the feudal system of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and establish a group of people's representatives.
This kind of change is what we call the democratic revolution.
Process & Results
Before the Wuchang Uprising, the Qing Dynasty was also forced to make a gesture of constitutional monarchy, as well as hypocritical attempts. But the law of history is there, and the old system, which never willingly ends itself, must be "persuaded" by the revolution.
On October 10, 1911, the first shot was fired in the Wuchang Uprising, which opened the prelude to the Xinhai Revolution.
This feat was initiated by the revolutionaries of the 8th Battalion of the New Army Engineering in Wuchang, and they took control of Wuchang that night. Subsequently, the revolutionaries in Hanyang and Hankow also took action one after another, and in the following two days they recovered Hanyang and Hankow. The rule of the Qing ** was torn open from the heartland, and there was a chain reaction quickly. Within two months, 15 provinces across the country successively declared independence from the Qing Dynasty, and the rule of the Qing Dynasty had died in name only.
On January 1, 1912, China **Temporary** was established, and Sun Yat-sen was elected as the Provisional Great**. It was the first democratic republic in Asia.
On February 12 of the following year, Puyi, the last little emperor of the Qing Dynasty, was helped by the Empress Dowager Longyu to issue an abdication edict, and the Qing Dynasty became a thing of the past in Chinese history.
Impact
The Xinhai Revolution was an important milestone in China's modern history. Its impact is mainly in the following aspects.
As mentioned above, the Xinhai Revolution was different from the Wuxu Reform, and the revolutionaries represented by Sun Yat-sen realized that in the internal and external environment at that time, if they wanted to save China and try to survive, the first task was to overthrow the feudal imperial power. The Xinhai Revolution achieved this goal and put an end to the feudal system of rule that had been maintained in Chinese history for more than 2,000 years.
From feudal obedience to the people to having a natural human rights cognition of "freedom and equality", this is a huge and shocking change for an ordinary person. With such a change, the Xinhai Revolution set an example for the broad masses of the people in action and theory. To put it in layman's terms, it has broken through the cage of feudal thinking, spread the idea of democracy, and enhanced the democratic consciousness of the Chinese.
These ideological emancipations not only provided an ideological foundation for the establishment of the first class at that time, but also provided a reference for subsequent revolutionary explorations.
At that time, the Qing ** was already rotten, and the Wuchang Uprising sounded the clarion call to overthrow it. In less than two months, most of the provinces "under the rule" of the Qing Dynasty announced their "liberation", which was inseparable from the enlightenment effect of the Xinhai Revolution.
For the later Chinese revolution, the Xinhai Revolution also had a very high guiding position.
Before the founding of New China, although the Kuomintang betrayed the revolution several times, what they shouted was Sun Yat-sen's legacy, even after the defeat of Taiwan. Although the Chiang Kai-shek clique acted in a departure from the true revolutionary spirit, it shows the influence of the Xinhai Revolution and especially Sun Yat-sen on the Kuomintang.
The Communist Party of China has always regarded Sun Yat-sen's true successor as its own responsibility and revered Sun Yat-sen as the pioneer of the Chinese national revolution. At the same time, in combination with its own revolutionary development process, it has led the people of New China on the bright road of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Most of the many leaders in the early days of New China experienced the Xinhai Revolution, and it is inevitable that they were deeply influenced and inspired.
The impact of the Xinhai Revolution on Chinese society at that time also included international aspects, economic development, social structure, equal rights for men and women, etc., which will not be expanded here due to space limitations. In short, China after the Xinhai Revolution and feudal China before it are two different things.
Significance
The Xinhai Revolution was a national democratic revolution in the relatively complete sense of Chinese history. It ended the long-term rule of the feudal dynasty over China, brought a completely different social concept to the Chinese people politically and ideologically, played a major role in emancipating the people's minds, and established an unprecedented republican form of government and widely spread the concept of democracy and republic.
The Xinhai Revolution was a nationwide revolution that took place in the lunar year of Xinhai, from October 1911 to early 1912, with the aim of overthrowing the rule of the Qing Dynasty and establishing a republican form of government.
It was marked by the Wuchang Uprising, fired the first shot to overthrow feudalism, and quickly affected the whole country, and on February 12, 1912, the emperor of the Qing Dynasty and the last emperor of China, forever left behind history.
Its impact and significance on Chinese history is very significant and far-reaching, and from this time on, the exploration of social changes that are different from the previous dynastic changes has been staged in the land of China, and finally under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, Chinese people have found their own path.
Salute to the pioneers of the Xinhai Revolution!
Xinhai Revolution