Sign up to access the complete lesson and track your progress!
Unlock This CourseJapan had already taken Manchuria in 1931. On 7 July 1937 fighting broke out between Japanese and Chinese soldiers near the Marco Polo Bridge, close to Beijing, and it grew into a full-scale war. By then Chiang Kai-shek's Guomindang government and Mao Zedong's CCP (the Chinese Communist Party) had stopped fighting each other, because many Chinese people were demanding that all Chinese unite against Japan. The two sides agreed to cooperate, and the Red Army's main forces were renamed the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. The cooperation was shaky and each side still distrusted the other.
The Japanese army was better equipped, and it won quickly. It took Beijing and Shanghai in 1937 and the capital, Nanjing, in December 1937. This was the start of a war that lasted until 1945.
The communists were based in the north-west, around their base at Yan'an. They were much weaker than the Guomindang in 1937, with only about 40,000 party members. The war gave them a chance. The Red Army did not try to fight the Japanese in big battles it could not win. It used guerrilla warfare.
Small groups of fighters moved into villages and mountains in the countryside behind Japanese lines. They attacked supply lines, railways and small army posts, then melted away. In August 1940 the Eighth Route Army attacked railways and coal mines across north China in a large operation known as the Hundred Regiments Offensive.
The Japanese held the cities and the railways, but the countryside was too big for them to control. The CCP set up bases there, ran local government and asked the peasants for help with food, shelter and news of the enemy.
Key terms:
Most Chinese people were poor farmers, so their support mattered most. The Red Army set strict rules for its soldiers, known as the Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention. They told soldiers to pay a fair price for anything they bought, to return anything they borrowed and not to take so much as a needle or thread from the people. In the areas it controlled, the CCP also cut the rents that tenants paid to landlords and the interest charged on loans, and soldiers sometimes helped with the harvest.
The Japanese punished villages that helped the guerrillas, and their revenge attacks were brutal. This pushed many villagers closer to the CCP. The Red Army protected the peasants, while the Japanese attacked them.
The result was dramatic growth. By 1945 the CCP had more than a million members and a much larger army, and it controlled large areas of the north China countryside. It was also seen as a patriotic party that was fighting Japan. The war turned a small, tired movement that had just survived the Long March into a serious rival to the Guomindang.
The Guomindang also fought hard at first. At Shanghai in 1937 it lost many of its best troops. But the war exposed serious weaknesses.
After Shanghai and Nanjing fell, Chiang moved his government to Wuhan and then, in 1938, to Chongqing in the far south-west. The Guomindang lost the coastal cities, the best factories and the richest tax areas. Many people felt it had left them to face the Japanese alone.
Cut off and short of money, many officials and army officers took bribes and kept supplies and money meant for the army and the poor. Ordinary people lost trust in the government.
To pay for the war, the government printed more and more money. Prices rose faster and faster. Wages and savings lost their value, and soldiers, teachers and office workers found it hard to feed their families.
To fill its armies, the Guomindang seized young men from the villages, sometimes tying them together and marching them long distances. Many died of hunger and disease before they reached their units. Families who lost their sons, and sometimes their only workers, hated it.
The Guomindang also spent effort on watching the communists. In January 1941 its troops attacked the communist New Fourth Army in Anhui province, and the cooperation between the two sides was effectively over. By 1945 Chiang's government was still the official government of China, but it was weak, unpopular and worn out.
Changed: in 1937 the Guomindang was far stronger. By 1945 it had lost much support, while the CCP had grown from a small group in the north-west into a mass party with its own army and bases.
Stayed the same: China was still a divided country. The Guomindang and the CCP still saw each other as enemies, and most people were still poor farmers.
Impact: the war weakened Chiang and strengthened Mao, and set the stage for the civil war that followed.
Explain TWO causes of the growth in support for the CCP in the years 1937-45. [8 marks]
One cause was the way the Red Army treated the peasants. Its soldiers followed strict rules, such as paying fairly for goods and not taking so much as a needle or thread from ordinary people, and in the areas the CCP controlled it cut rents and interest charges. When Japanese troops punished villages that helped the guerrillas, peasants in north China turned to the Red Army for protection. This brought the CCP new recruits and local help, and by 1945 its membership had grown from about 40,000 in 1937 to more than a million.
A second cause was the weakness of the Guomindang. After losing Shanghai and Nanjing in 1937, Chiang Kai-shek moved his government to Chongqing, away from the richest areas. The government printed money to pay for the war, so inflation made ordinary people poorer, and officials and officers were often corrupt. Forced conscription, where young men were seized from the villages, caused huge anger. Many Chinese people therefore lost faith in the Guomindang and looked to the CCP as a better alternative.
What lifts this to the top level: two causes, each with precise facts such as dates, names and figures and a clear link showing how the cause led to growing support for the CCP.
For "Explain TWO causes", write two separate paragraphs. In each one name the cause, give a date, name or figure as evidence, then say how it led to the outcome in the question.