Yan'an Soviet
The Yan'an Soviet was a soviet governed by the Chinese Communist Party during the 1930s and 1940s, established in North-Central China on the border area between Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia. In October 1936, it became the final destination of the Long March, and served as the CCP's main base until after the Second Sino-Japanese War. After the CCP and Kuomintang formed the Second United Front in 1937, the Yan'an Soviet was officially reconstituted as the Shaan–Gan–Ning Border Region. In CCP historiography, Yan'an is celebrated as the most important of revolutionary sites and the birthplace of Mao Zedong Thought.
Organization
The Shaan–Gan–Ning base area, of which Yan'an was a part, was founded in 1934.During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Shaan–Gan–Ning Border Region became one of a number of border region governments established by the CCP. Other regions included the Jin–Sui Border Region, the Jin–Cha–Ji Border Region and the Ji–Lu–Yu Border Region.
Although not on the front lines of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Shaan–Gan–Ning Border Region was the most politically important and influential revolutionary base area due to its function as the de facto capital of the Chinese Communist Revolution.
History
After the Long March, the CCP lost 90% of its members. Mao Zedong was originally intent on heading to the USSR border, but changed his mind after hearing about a large soviet in Northern Shaanxi. Mao's army arrived in northern Shaanxi in 1935. When they arrived, they found a soviet wracked by sufan campaigns initiated by the local Politburo Central Committee under Liu Zhidan. The central leadership of the CCP ordered the purges stopped. Originally the KMT had control of practically all of the major cities, while the CCP only held a few counties in the countryside. Multiple attempts were made to move to richer lands, or to head to the USSR border to get support from the Soviets, but all were stymied.The CCP took advantage of the increasing nationalism and the KMT's weak response to Japanese aggression to recruit allies. While Mao wanted a "united front against Chiang Kai-shek and Japanese aggression", the Communist International faction in the CCP, headed by Wang Ming, successfully pushed for an alliance with the KMT, against Mao's wishes. In December 1936, the Xi'an Incident occurred, where Chiang was kidnapped by his own soldiers and forced to agree to a United Front with the CCP. The CCP took advantage of the chaos to expand the base in Shaanxi and take Yan'an. In January 1937, the CCP headquarters were established in Yan'an. Early 1937 was a period of relative peace, where in many areas of Shaanxi the CCP shared administration with the KMT, however there were frequent disputes over taxation rights.
On 7 July 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge incident occurred, beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War. By this point Chiang Kai-shek was fully willing to negotiate with the CCP, and the Shaan–Gan–Ning Border Region was officially established. During this war, there was an internal power struggle between Mao and the pro-Soviet faction, headed by Wang Ming, who wanted closer relations with the KMT and a more aggressive strategy in the war, following the Comintern line, while Mao wanted operational independence from the KMT and a more conservative strategy focused on guerilla warfare. Wang Jiaxiang, an ally of Mao, eventually successfully lobbied the USSR and got verbal recognition of Mao's leadership of the CCP. During the 6th Plenum of the 6th Central Committee, Mao used this verbal recognition to monopolize power of the CCP, and dealt a heavy blow to the power of Wang Ming.
During the Yan'an period, Mao also began to seriously develop Mao Zedong Thought, and wrote many famous essays such as On Practice and On Contradiction. By the 1940s Mao had for all intents and purposes becomes the chief Marxist theoretician of the CCP. On May 19th of 1941, Mao also began the "Reform our Study Movement", to teach the Soviet Union's textbook History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as well as Mao Zedong Thought. Mao also successfully used divide and conquer tactics to break his political opponents in the Comintern faction, and by 1941 the faction had basically dissolved.
Beginning in November 1938 and continuing through October 1941, Yan'an was the target of bombings by the Japanese forces.
By 1939, the KMT began to fear the CCP gaining strength and eventually attacked them in spring of that year. While the KMT took control of much of eastern Gansu, the CCP took control of the rich east including Suide. In the summer of 1940, Zhou Enlai met with Chiang's chief of staff and once again agreed on borders.
On 6 January 1941, the KMT prohibited domestic and foreign aid from entering the Shaanxi–Gansu–Ningxia Border Region and attempted to encircle it. In March 1941, the region repelled the KMT's attack. The KMT blockaded the region, leading to increased inflation, reduced access to goods that were daily necessities, and increased taxes on the peasants. Among the responses to this situation was the Mass Production Campaign, which sought to expand production and also reorganize production through cooperative social relations.
On 1 February 1942 Mao began the rectification campaign, to purge the CCP of the Comintern faction, May 4th ideology, and instate Mao Zedong Thought as the primary doctrine. Originally Mao encouraged criticism as a weapon against his enemies, but critics such as Wang Shiwei complained about egalitarianism and free discussion being replaced with censorship and self criticism, and the hierarchy of cadres. As a result, Mao held a struggle session against Wang Shiwei, who was eventually imprisoned and later executed in 1947. This was along with a general purge of the cultural community in 1942. Mao began pushing anti-intellectualism and prioritized making culture subservient to politics. Mao pushed constant self reflection and self criticism to shape CCP cadres into the "New Socialist Man". The Emergency Rescue Campaign, primarily carried out by Kang Sheng, commenced in April 1943. This brought the usage of mass rallies and struggle sessions, as well as self-criticism and confession, to a fever pitch. In many instances confessions were extracted through torture, and people frequently resorted to extreme exaggeration of crimes to prove repentance, as well as blaming others. This campaign did not end until December 1943, when the USSR sent a cable denouncing the campaign.
In 1944 the reexamination campaign began and the Emergency Rescue Campaign was rolled back, with many of the confessions and verdicts reexamined. However, by this point Mao had practically achieved his goals with the campaign. By May 1944, the 7th Plenum of the 6th CCP Central Committee was held, enshrining Mao Zedong Thought as the primary doctrine of the CCP and securing Mao supreme leadership over the party.
Throughout 1946, Mao aimed for peaceful reconciliation with the KMT, but Chiang refused and eventually negotiations broke down. In March 1947, KMT forces attacked Yan'an directly and managed to capture it, but Mao led a guerilla campaign throughout the countryside and eventually managed to defeat the KMT and form the People's Republic of China.
Society
By the early 1940s, Yan'an had 37,000–38,000 residents, with 7,000 of them being locals and the rest being CCP cadres. The Yan'an soviet was controlled by Central Committee planning, and heavily influenced by the experience of the Ruijin era. By 1937, many youth were migrating to Yan'an, and the CCP established a dozen schools. These schools played a key part in Yan'an political life, prioritizing ideological training. There was a rich intellectual cultural life and many publications, such as the New China Daily, Liberation Weekly, Political Affairs, and more. The schools and party organs were generally led by veteran cadres, who were often only in their late 20s and 30s. Yan'an was somewhat hierarchical, with veteran cadres getting much better treatments, rations, and social status. Yan'an was culturally distinct from the rest of the Shaan–Gan–Ning border area, particularly Shaanbei, which was notoriously culturally conservative and traditional. The CCP installed elections throughout the Shaan–Gan–Ning Border Region. While they were one party systems, they still allowed a level of citizen input, and participation was high, particularly in the richer northeast.Women's movement
In 1939, Mao Zedong proposed the creation of a women's university where the CCP could develop female cadres. The Chinese Women's University was inaugurated on 20 July of that year, and Mao's inauguration speech emphasized the role of women in resisting the Japanese invasion of China. Mao stated, "The day all women in China rise up is the moment of China's revolutionary victory!" The curriculum focused on revolutionary theory and methods, leadership skills in the women's movement, and professional skills deemed relevant for national reconstruction and resisting the Japanese invasion.On 1 February 1940, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party instructed that for International Women's Day, local party branches. should emphasize the need for women across social classes to unite in opposition to those who collaborated with the invading Japanese. In the 1940s, one of the major themes of the women's movement in Yan'an was to denounce Chen Bijun, the wife Japanese collaborator Wang Jingwei.
While the CCP made strides to extend equal rights to women, they struggled against the traditional customs of arranged marriage and dowry. In 1939, the CCP reformed marriage law in order to allow free marriage and divorce, but this was frequently abused by the family of brides, who used the easy divorce to arrange marriages with a greater "caili". Continued reforms were enacted in 1944 and 1946 to attempt to moderate these abuses and stop the sale of women via marriage.