Reinterpreting the Sino-Japanese War:The Southwest Shanxi Base Area in North China 1939-1940

Abstract

It is generally argued and widely accepted that the success of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] by the end of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) was based on a moderate approach for mobilising the local peasantry through appeals to anti-Japanese nationalism and programs of social justice. According to the evidence presented in this thesis, there however existed a mix of experiences. During the period of late 1939 and early 1940, in some counties of Southwest Shanxi and other major North China base areas the CCP abandoned the well-known moderate approach to adopt a radical approach resorting to violent class struggle. This was not a coincidence but resulted from a confluence of external and internal factors during 1939-1940 when the CCP came into a civil war with the Shanxi provincial warlord Yan Xishan, and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party. It is also worth pointing out that in some other counties of Southwest Shanxi and other major North China base areas the CCP still maintained the moderate approach in order to obtain the support of local elites. This thesis therefore argues that CCP success by 1945 relied on a combination of two contrasting and complementary approaches – radical and moderate, both of which played a indispensable role. Nevertheless, the thesis demonstrates that the thorough implementation of CCP’s reform policies during the Sino-Japanese War depends more on the radical approach than the moderate one.