Nanchang uprising

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Memorial to the Nanchang Uprising in Nanchang City
Memorial tower for the Nanchang uprising

The Nanchang Uprising (南昌 起义 / 南昌 起義, Nánchāng qǐyì ) began in the night of July 31st to August 1st, 1927 in the city of Nanchang , Jiangxi , and was the first major military conflict between the nationalists and the communists in Chinese Civil war . Although it was a failure, it is considered the hour of birth of the People's Liberation Army and has a correspondingly high status in the self-image of the People's Republic of China.

It was started by the communists after the original alliance between the Kuomintang and communists broke and the Kuomintang massacred communists and all that was believed to be in Shanghai and the left-wing Kuomintang government turned against the communists. By the summer of 1927, all communist uprisings had failed. But Stalin was of the opinion that the break of the united front between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang signaled armed uprisings and the seizure of power and the establishment of soviets all over China. For this reason, the Comintern demanded that the CCP continue to organize riots quickly and sent out some absurd directives.

Mao Zedong was among the first to recognize that the CP can only be successful in the struggle for power if it has its own military. Political struggle, mass movement and a united front are pointless because in militarized China of the 1920s all political power comes from the barrel of a gun . In Mao's view, such a communist army should be recruited from impoverished peasants. Mao's proposal to set up communist bases in hard-to-reach areas was only partially approved by the Comintern. However, the CPSU Politburo decided to provide the CCP with weapons for equipping a corps and planned to take 15,000 rifles, 10 million rounds of ammunition, 30 machine guns and four artillery pieces with 2,000 grenades - a total of 1.1 million rubles - to China via Vladivostok to shipping. The Chinese communists were supposed to take over an army and capture a port through which the weapons could be brought ashore. From July 19-22, the organizers of the uprising, Li Lisan , Tan Pingshan and Zhou Enlai, met in Jiujiang and decided to hold the uprising in Nanchang. The Comintern, however, did not approve of this plan and tried to stop the uprising through Zhang Guotao , but it was only delayed for a day.

On the night of July 31st to August 1st, 1927 , parts of the 2nd Front Army of the National Revolutionary Army , which were close to the communists and were commanded by the left Kuomintang general Zhang Fakui , rebelled . The uprising was organized by Zhou Enlai , Zhang Guotao and Peng Pai . He Long , in command of the 20th Corps, Ye Ting , who was in charge of the independent regiment of the 4th Corps, and Zhu De , who was in charge of the training regiment of the 9th Corps, took direct command . The approximately 20,000 insurgents succeeded in taking the city of Nanchang , after which they proclaimed the Central Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang and pretended to act under the banner of the united front. The nationalist government forces responded with an immediate siege of Nanchang. A few days later, the communist insurgents managed to break through the siege ring. The plan was to capture the city of Shantou and its port, and to unite with the Hailufeng Soviet of Peng Pai. However, in late September and early October, the troops were defeated while attempting to capture Shantou. He Long fled to Hong Kong , Ye Ting and Peng Pai escaped to Lufeng . Zu De led an army of about 1,000 men towards the border between Guangdong and Jiangxi .

Mao Zedong was not involved in planning or carrying out the uprising. He offered to organize a peasant army to come to He Long's aid, which the party leadership rejected as unrealistic. That Mao had nothing to do with this uprising later proved to be an advantage for him, because he could not be blamed for any mistakes in this regard, but numerous other party politicians were incriminated in this regard.

In April 1928, the remaining soldiers led by Zhu De - including Lin Biao - arrived in Jinggangshan and joined forces there with Mao Zedong's troops, who had fled here after the failed autumn harvest uprising in Hunan . Zhu and Mao subsequently established the Jinggangshan Revolutionary Base Area .

Chen Duxiu took responsibility for this bloody failure . He was deposed as party leader on August 7, 1927 and then served as a scapegoat for the Comintern's false China policy for all of the party's mistakes. Qu Qiubai took over the chairmanship and Li Lisan became the head of the propaganda department.

The site of the headquarters of the August 1, 1927 rebellion ("Ba-Yi" qiyi zhihuibu jiuzhi "八一" 起义 指挥部 旧址) has been on the list of monuments of the People's Republic of China (1-13) since 1961 . The People's Liberation Army bears the historical date on its insignia. August 1st is the day of the Chinese People's Liberation Army in the People's Republic of China today, although the communist armed forces were not called that at that time.

Web links

Commons : Nanchang Uprising  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Dieter Kuhn : The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events . 3. Edition. Edition Forum, Heidelberg 2007, ISBN 3-927943-25-8 , p. 543 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Mao: The Real Story . Simon & Schuster, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4516-5447-9 , pp. 189 f .
  3. ↑ Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer: Mao Zedong: "There will be battle": a biography . Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95757-365-0 , pp. 126 .
  4. ^ Sabine Dabringhaus: Mao Zedong . Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56239-6 , pp. 29 .
  5. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Mao: The Real Story . Simon & Schuster, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4516-5447-9 , pp. 186 f .
  6. ^ A b Christopher R. Lew and Edwin Pak-wah Leung: Historical dictionary of the Chinese Civil War . 2nd Edition. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2013, ISBN 978-0-8108-7874-7 , pp. 155-156 .
  7. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Mao: The Real Story . Simon & Schuster, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4516-5447-9 , pp. 190 .
  8. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Mao: The Real Story . Simon & Schuster, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4516-5447-9 , pp. 206 .
  9. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Mao: The Real Story . Simon & Schuster, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4516-5447-9 , pp. 543 .
  10. ↑ Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine: Mao: The Real Story . Simon & Schuster, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4516-5447-9 , pp. 211 .