Transcription
Hello, I'm John Green, and this is Crash Course World History, and today we're sadly returning to China for the last time. By the way, Stan brought cookies. They're delicious. I wish I had a metaphor to connect China and cookies. But I don't. They're just delicious. I'm going to miss you, blue felt cutout of China, because we felt red would be cliché. Mr. Green! Mr. Green! I won't let you speak until you shave your mustache, past self. The 20th century was very important for China because it saw not one, but two revolutions. And perhaps the 1911 revolution in China is more important from a world history perspective than the more famous Communist revolution of 1949, but you wouldn't know that for two reasons. First, Communist China became a very important issue during the Cold War. Second, Mao Zedong, the father of Communist China, was very good at promoting himself. For example, his famous Little Red Book was something everyone had to have. And I mean, it was mandatory. (Theme music) You'll probably remember from last episode how China lost the Opium Wars in the 19th century, which led to European dominance and spheres of influence and so on, and this was a disgrace to the ruling Qing Dynasty, after which there were calls for reform. One reform movement called for the adoption of European military technology and educational systems, and it was called Self-Strengthening, and it probably seemed like a great idea, especially since it worked so well in Japan, but it didn't work in China... at least not until recently. But what happened in China was the Boxer Rebellion against Western influence in 1900, which spurred some young liberals, including Sun Yat-sen, to plan to overthrow the dynasty. It's really time for an open letter! An open letter to Sun Yat-sen. But first, let's see what's in the secret chamber today. Another champagne bottle opener? Stan, didn't we use up the idea of China inventing fireworks? That's creativity itself! We couldn't launch one, and now we can launch six if you count the two secret ones behind me. "Dear Sun Yat-sen, you were great. I mean, the Republic of China calls you the Father of the Nation, and the people of the Republic of China call you the pioneer of the democratic revolution. You're the only thing they agree on! You lived in China, Japan, and the United States, converted to Christianity, were a doctor, and were the godfather of an important science fiction writer. But the frustrating thing is that you never got to rule China, and you would have been an unparalleled ruler. Your Three Principles of the People, nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood, are great principles. The problem, besides the fact that your life was short, is that your face wasn't suited for Warhol's style of portraiture. What a shame. All the best, John Green." So, the 1911 revolution that wrote the end for the Qing Dynasty began when a bomb accidentally exploded, and the revolutionaries said to themselves, "Our plan has probably been discovered, so let's not postpone our uprising any longer." The uprising would have been suppressed like many before it, but the difference was that the army joined the revolution this time because it wanted to become more modern. The Qing Emperor abdicated, and the revolutionaries chose General Yuan Shikai as their leader, while Sun Yat-sen was declared provisional president of the republic on January 1, 1912. A new government was established with a Senate and a House of Representatives, and it was supposed to enact a new constitution. After the first elections, Sun Yat-sen's party, the Guomindang, was the largest, but it didn't have a majority, so Sun Yat-sen abdicated the presidency to Yuan, which was a grave mistake, because he expelled the Guomindang party and his rule was dictatorial. When Yuan Shikai died in 1916, his government, which was the first non-hereditary government in China in 3,000 years, collapsed. Warlordism returned, with powerful local magnates and armies controlling smaller regions throughout China that were not under foreign control. You might remember this phenomenon from the early history of China, first during the Warring States period, and then during the three hundred years that separated the Han and Sui dynasties. So, the period between 1912 and 1949 is sometimes called the Republic of China, even though it's attributed to a government that wasn't very effective. The group that led the attempt to reform China and make it a nation-state was the Guomindang, but after 1920, the Chinese Communist Party had emerged. To regain control from the powerful warlords and unify China, the Guomindang needed the Chinese Communist Party. An alliance between communists and nationalists might seem like hell to you, and it was indeed. But the two parties maintained their alliance for a period in the 1920s, for the sake of the children, no less. Then Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, and the alliance collapsed in 1927 due to the resentment of Guomindang leader Chiang Kai-shek towards the communists for their attempts to incite a socialist revolution. The communists' response was: "That's what we do, man, that's communism." This split was bad for several reasons, most importantly, it ignited a civil war between the nationalists and the communists. We won't go into the details of the civil war, but we'll spoil the ending for you: the communists won. But here are some key points. First, although Mao emerged victorious from the war, the communists would have been wiped out in 1934 if they hadn't made a terrible and miraculous escape, fighting their way from southern China to the mountains in the north, a journey that became known as the Long March, a missed opportunity for historians where it could have been called the "Long Donkey March." Second, throughout the time the Guomindang party was trying to crush the communists, large parts of China were being occupied or invaded by Japan. Third, the communists were more skilled at fighting the Japanese than the nationalists, even though Chiang Kai-shek received full support from the United States. Every time the Japanese defeated the nationalists, the nationalists' respect among the Chinese decreased. Their popularity was also reduced by the corruption of the Nationalist Party, their imposition of crushing taxes on Chinese peasants, and stories of Nationalist troops wearing civilian clothes and abandoning Nanjing during the horrific destruction inflicted by the Japanese army in 1937. Meanwhile, the communists gained the favor of the peasants in their northwestern province by not looting local land forces and giving the peasants a greater role in local government. This doesn't mean that life was rosy under Mao's communist rule, even in its early stages. By the way, this is a real chalk drawing. I'm impressed. In preparation for what was to come, Mao launched a "rectification" program in 1942, in which students and intellectuals went to the countryside to learn about "real China," in an attempt to rectify their culture. We try to be politically neutral in our program, but we oppose the idea of intellectuals doing hard labor. In any case, four years after the end of World War II, the communists defeated Chiang Kai-shek's army and sent him to Taiwan, and these military victories paved the way for Mao's declaration of the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. Mao and the Communist Party's mission from the beginning of their rule was to establish a new socialist state. Mao declared from the outset that the working class would lead the "people's democratic dictatorship." "Democratic dictatorship," the best form of democracy! It has the benefits of democracy and the benefits of dictatorship together. You're allowed to vote, but there's only one option, so you don't have to strain yourself thinking. The Communist Party promised to give women equal rights with men, reduce rents, distribute land fairly, establish a new heavy industry, and provide many freedoms, including freedom of "thought, expression, publication, assembly, association, correspondence, residence, personal freedom, freedom of movement, freedom of religious belief, and freedom to hold processions and demonstrations." Empty words. In addition to the Communist Party not upholding any of these freedoms, Mao did not treat landlords or peasants with abundant produce well. Land redistribution and reform meant crushing the power of the landlords, often by force. But the centralization of power and suppression of personal ambition was difficult for the government, made more difficult by China's involvement in the Korean War, which led to the first mass campaigns of Mao's democratic dictatorship. The campaign called "Resist America and Aid Korea" aimed to encourage support for the war, and because of it, all foreigners left China. Then came a second campaign against "counter-revolutionaries," which was much worse. Anyone suspected of sympathizing with the Guomindang, and anyone not communist enough, was subjected to humiliation and violence. Between October 1950 and August 1951, 82,332 people accused of espionage or counter-revolution were executed in Guangdong province alone. The third campaign, called "Three Antis," aimed to reform the Communist Party itself. The last mass campaign, "Five Antis," was an attack on bourgeois capitalism in all its forms, which led to the death of private industry in China. Few victims of this last campaign died, but capitalism was weakened, and state control increased. So, let's go to the imagination bubble. Mao and the Communist Party embarked on making China an industrial power by following the Soviet model. We haven't talked much about this, but under the Soviet system, a huge industry emerged in Russia, and tens of millions died of starvation due to centralized planning and collective agricultural organization through what are known as the Five-Year Plans. China adopted the Five-Year Plans starting in 1953, and the first plan was successful, at least industrially. Its success even exceeded expectations, with industry increasing by 121% more than planned. But for the plan to succeed, peasants had to grow a lot of grain and sell it at a very low price. This reduced inflation and contributed to increased savings. The Five-Year Plans didn't have consumer goods, so there was nothing to buy. For urban workers, the standard of living improved, and China's population reached 646 million. Up to this point, Mao's plan seemed successful, but there was no way to maintain this growth in China without slipping into capitalism. So Mao proposed a terrible idea called the Great Leap Forward, which essentially involved motivating people to increase industrial productivity. One of his bad ideas was to order individuals to build steel furnaces in their backyards to increase steel production. It was a bad idea. First, it didn't significantly increase steel production, and second, people who didn't know how to make steel in their backyards produced shoddy steel. But the worst idea he implemented was paying for heavy machinery from the Soviet Union with imported grain. This led to a food shortage for the peasants, and as a result, between 1959 and 1962, 20 million people died, nearly half of them under the age of ten. That was sad, imagination bubble. Then salvation came through the Cultural Revolution! Just kidding, it was tragic. By the mid-1960s, Mao feared that the Chinese Revolution was losing momentum and didn't want China to become a bureaucratic police state like most Soviet bloc countries. The Cultural Revolution was an attempt to recapture the glory days of the revolution and ignite the people's enthusiasm, and the best way to do that was to empower young people. Soon, students who couldn't find good jobs took the opportunity to denounce their teachers, employers, and sometimes even their parents, and revolt against tradition, which often meant destroying buildings and art. The number of these "Red Guards" grew, and anyone representing the "Four Olds": old culture, old customs, old ideas, old traditions, was subjected to humiliation and violence. Intellectuals were sent to the countryside, as in 1942, millions of people were persecuted, and countless historical and religious monuments were destroyed. But the real goal of the Cultural Revolution was to consolidate Mao's revolution, and although his image is still dominant, it's hard to say that China is now a socialist country. In the opinion of many, Mao's revolution was too short, and the real change in China happened in 1911. The Republic of China ended 3,000 years of dynastic rule and broke the cyclical pattern on which the Chinese had based their interpretation of history. It can be said that the nationalist revolutionaries literally ended history. The feeling that a new world had been created allowed for great things and negative things to happen in China, but the impact of China's two revolutions is mostly contradictory. For example, most of the components of the camera we use to film this video are made in China, as are most of the computers we use to edit it. But no one in the People's Republic of China will watch this episode legally, because the government blocks YouTube. Thanks for watching. See you next week. Produced and directed by Stan Muller. Script supervisor Meredith Danucci. Associate producer Danica Johnson. Written by my high school history teacher Raul Meyer in collaboration with me, and the graphics were done by the Thought Bubble team. Last week's phrase was: "Disco golf ball." If you want to guess this week's phrase or suggest a phrase for a future episode, do so in the comments where you can also ask questions about today's episode, which our team of historians will answer. If you like our program, subscribe to our channel. Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown: Don't forget to be awesome.