Commemorating China’s 1911 revolution From Sun to Mao to now

http://www.economist.com/node/21531524

ONE hundred years ago on October 10th, a mutiny in the central Chinese city of Wuhan triggered the collapse of China’s last imperial dynasty. In Taiwan, which separated from the mainland in 1949 after a civil war and still claims to be the rightful heir of the republic founded in 1911, the anniversary will be celebrated with a parade, including a display of air power. But in China there are mixed feelings. The country is spending lavishly on festivities, too. But its ruling Communist Party is busily stifling debate about the revolutionaries’ dream of democracy, which has been realised on Taiwan but not on the mainland.

China and Taiwan have long disputed each others’ claims to be the heir of the 1911 revolution. Sun Yat-sen, regarded as the revolution’s leader, is officially revered on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. As usual around the time of the anniversary, a giant portrait of him was erected on October 1st in Tiananmen Square, opposite that of Mao Zedong (both wearing Sun suits, as they were known before their rebranding in Mao’s day). But the Communist Party’s efforts to play up the occasion have revealed its nervousness.

In late September, a film about the revolution, “1911”, starring Jackie Chan, a kung-fu actor from Hong Kong, was released. Officials trumpeted the movie but ticket sales have been lacklustre. The film carefully avoids dwelling on the sweeping political reforms initiated by the final imperial dynasty, the Qing, which precipitated its own overthrow. A popular television series, “Advance toward the Republic”, that focused on those reforms and was aired in 2003, was cut by censors before the series finished, and banned from rebroadcast. One scene showed Sun addressing politicians six years after the 1911 revolution with a lament that “only powerful people have liberty”. Echoes of China today were clearly too unsettling for the censors.

In the past year, officials have tried to stop discussion of the 1911 revolution straying into such realms. In November 2010 the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald, a newspaper in south China’s Hunan Province, got into trouble with the censors after publishing a supplement on the revolution. It quoted from a letter written by Vaclav Havel in 1975, when he was still a Czech dissident, to the country’s communist president, Gustav Husak: “history again demands to be heard”. The newspaper did not explain the context, which was Mr Havel’s lament about the Communist Party’s sanitisation of history. It did not need to. Its clear message was that the democratic demands of 1911 could not be repressed forever.

Commemorate that.

Why to people always fall for the idea that large amounts of killing will somehow transform the world into a better place?

China had a problem starting around 1800, China had been the worlds most powerful state till about that time period. Then and only then did the European powers started to be able to challenge the power of China, and then only outside of the immediate area of China (For example India and the coastal areas of Africa). At the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, European Power boomed, while China went into a slow by steady decline. England, which in the 1700s was know as the Second best place to get China from, moved into First place do to its much cheaper costs to produce china (This was followed by other European Countries do to industrialization). The Manchu dynasty had expanded its power to the traditional limits of China power by 1800, and with that expansion reached its zenith in political power. With no immediate threats on its Borders, China did what empires have tended to do, enrich its upper classes at the expense of its poor (this has a long Chinese Tradition, but we see it also in the Roman Empire of 100 BC to 500 AD period). The poor reaches new lows in income so they revolt. Such revolts almost always fail (Through Chinese History is full of Successful Peasants Revolts that installed a new Dynasty into power, something unheard of in the rest of the World). The reason for these successes seems to be that in the rest of the world, when things get bad for the peasants some foreign invaders move in, ally themselves with the peasants and take over (This is the best explanation of how the Western Roman Empire Fell in the 400s, the peasants preferred rule by foreign barbarians then then their own elites).

Anyway, the first major Chinese Revolt in the 19th century against the Manchu was the Taiping rebellion of the 1860s, the leader portrayed himself as the second coming of Christ to Save the Chinese Peasants from both the Manchus and the European invaders. China had been weakened by the first Opium was (The use of Drugs always increase as the economy goes down hill, more to provide some mental relief of the pain of the lower classes as the economy goes to pieces, China in the early 1800s is just another example of this phenomena). As things went bad to worse, the Taiping rebellion offers relief, basically land reform to the peasants under some sort of Chinese and Christian and peasant (including non-Christian peasants) revolt movement. The relief was not only a relief from taxes (Which were a minor concern for the peasants) but relief from the RENT they paid to their landlords for use of the land, they family had farmed often for centuries. This later "tax" relief, ending of most of the Rent the Peasants paid to the Ruling elite was what the peasants wanted and this movement was resistant by the ruling elite (Just like similar relief proposals were rejected by the Roman Ruling Elite from 100 BC till 500 AD when Rome Faced a similar situation).

This opposition to the demands of the Peasants lead the Manchu Dynasty to ask, seek out and use Foriegn troops to put down the rebellion. Better for the Ruling Elite to give some of their wealth (via Rent) to the European Barbarians then to give up all of their rights to the rent of the Peasants to the Peasants. This lead to the defeat of the Tailing Rebellion,

More on the Tailing Rebellion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion

This suppression of the peasants was just that suppression, no real solution to the problems of the peasants were addressed. This lead to the next Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. This was native Chinese, but anti-Christian movement (More Anti-Christian in the sense the Peasants saw the Christians as allies of the Ruling elites of China, then anything against the Christian Religion). This rebellion was also suppressed by a Combination of Manchu, Chinese and European Troops.

More on the Boxer Rebellion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion

The good thing about the Boxer Rebellion it forced the Ruling Elite of China to address the problems of the Peasants. The solutions were known, they had worked in China during previous changes in Dynasties, but unpopular among the ruling elite, for it meant giving up the ruling elite right to rent from the peasants by giving the Peasants the land the Peasants worked on. The Revolution of 1911 was done by the Ruling Elite to prevent another Boxer Rebellion from happening. The reforms of the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty and the Nationalist Republic of China was geared more to get the ruling elite to agree to some sort of land reform before another peasant revolt would occur then anything else.

Sun Reforms was geared to that idea, and Sun tried to implement it, but ran across opposition from among the ruling elite whose main source of revenue was such rent. This lead to the Various Warlords taking over parts of China through the balancing of support from the ruling elite who wanted to retain the payments of rent to them, and eliminating such rent to get the local peasants to support the warlords. The most successful of these Warlords was the Warlord over Manchuria (Who was a Manchu NOT a Chinese), but he had the most industrialized part of China AND thus could and did support radical land reforms.

Now Sun died in 1925, the Nationalist Government decided it was time to destroy the main remaining opposition party in China, the Communist party. This lead to the "Long March" which saved the Communist party's army from destruction, but also made it an almost totally rural peasant army (unlike the Army of Urban industrial workers envisioned by Marx as the base of the Communist party and the key to the earlier Russian Revolution). Thus the Army of Mao was more a Traditional Chinese Peasant Army in Revolt then a Communist Army. Mao kept the dogma Communist, but it was clear by the late 1930s, his Army was a Classic Chinese Peasant Army not a urban based Marxist Army and its desire was rural land reforms more then any urban worker base revolt and take over of the Government.

By the end of WWII, it was clear that whatever support the Nationalists had among the peasants were gone, both do to accommodation with the landlord who retained their right to rent AND the repression of any opposition to that position from anyone within China, including elements of the Nationalist Chinese Army. In the subsequent war between Mao and his Communist Party Peasant Army and the Nationalist Army, the peasants supported the Communist (Mao in returned adopted a policy forbidding the traditional Chinese Army "Right" to take whatever their needed from the peasants. Mao insisted that any such taking to paid for, and only take what was absolutely needed. Mao even forced his Troops to keep books on who paid what to make sure no single peasants paid more the other peasants paid. This difference in attitude kept the Peasants on the Side of the Communists during the Civil War (And even lead to massive defections of Nationalist Army Units, including Officers to the Communists as the war waged on).

By 1947 the writing was on the War, Truman Sent General Marshall to China to try to talk the Nationalists to enter into a coalition Government with the Communist (To slow down any takeover by the Communist). The Nationalist rejected the proposal and went on the attack, which was defeated and lead to the subsequent driving out of China of the Nationalist Government.

With Control of the Government, Mao started his reforms, first with massive land reforms and later other improvements to help the peasants (For example eliminating a parasite common in China at that time). The Nationalist, by 1950 restricted to Taiwan adopted similar programs to show they were also land reform minded (And freed from having to deal with Landlord who "owned" most of the land in Mainland China, was able to get it done by 1954, Mainland China took a bit longer).

Up till this time period, about 1955, the Communist takeover of China had NOT cost that much blood. People died, but about what was normal in any such revolution that includes taking property from large land owners and giving them to peasants. Such land owners often complain of such losses and maximize the cost in Human Lives, and then ignore the cost in Human lives the lack of reforms were causing before the land reforms.

In the late 1950s, Mao was losing Control of China, his technocrats were starting to run things on their own. Mao's reaction to this lost of Control was his "Great Leap Forward" which was a plan to reform China but also to increase his power in China. This lead to massive famines as the "Great Leap Forward" tried to impose Soviet Collectivization plans to the Rural Peasant population. Like the similar Soviet Collectivization program of the 1930s, you saw a drop in food production even while the amount of food controlled by the Government increased (This was why Stalin had done Collectivization, it was to increase HIS power within the USSR even at the expense of he USSR as a whole, Mao seems to have similar goals).

Mao ended up ending the "Great Leap Forward" after he had achieved his objective of regaining power within China, but then plan the problems caused by the "Great Leap Forward" on certain radicals with the movement (Which he then removed, just like Stalin had done at the end of Soviet Collectivization in the great show trials of the late 1930s). Notice it had less to do with Communism then Mao seeking to retain and regain internal power within China. This was the great loss of life within China and like Stalin's movement in the 1930s was more an act of Fascism (As even Mussolini Called it, while Calling Stalin the Greatest Fascist of the era) then Communism (and given the nature of the Chinese Revolution of 1949, an act against the revolt of the Rural Peasants that had succeeded in 1949 then any act of being a Communist).

Just a Comment on the lost of Life in China since 1949. The death spiral seems to be more a product of the need of the Dictator to stay in charge, and the only way he can stay in charge is to address crisis after crisis with each crisis, worse then the last one. This is the Pattern Mussolini used from 1922-1945, Hitler used from 1933 to 1945 and Stalin used from 1925-1953 (The year he died). The death rate in both the Soviet Union (after 1953) and China (After the end of the "Great Leap Forward" in the mid 1960s) dropped drastically when the leadership changed and the new leaders saw no need to retain complete power themselves. This is NOT a new event, Sulla and Caesar used used techniques during their rule of Ancient Rome, and Napoleon did the same during his rule of France (and his Nephew Napoleon III did the same in the 1850s in France). It is a very successful technique, people do NOT want reform while the country is in crisis and thus as long as the leadership keeps the Country in crisis, the leadership can retain total power. Thus the problem is not Communism per se, but the desire of people to stay in power at any cost.