U4AOS1 INTERPRETATIONS

Question 1

G + K

Nationalist Decade

Answer 1

“By 1937…China was solving her problems, at least at an experimental scale” (Gray)

GMD made ‘stunning accomplishments from a position of unenviable weakness’ (Kirby)

Question 2

Fairbank

Nationalist Decade

Answer 2

‘The Nanjing government might have ridden the crest of modernisation, but its fate was determined from the first by the menace of Japanese miltarism’

Question 3

H + F + B + T

Nationalist Decade

Answer 3

‘Beneath the Nationalist government’s veneer of progress lay fundamental problems of social and economic injustices’ (Hsu)

‘the Chinese people groaned under a regime Fascist in every quality except efficiency’ (Fitzgerald)

‘the unification achieved in this decade was more apparent than real’ (Bianco)

Ch farmer like ‘a man standing permanently up to his neck in water so that even a ripple is sufficient to drown him’ (Tawny)

Question 4

Hu Shi

Aims of the NCM

Answer 4

“new thought tide… to recreate civilisation.”

Question 5

T + M

NCM significance

Answer 5

New youth magazine “jabbed the rapier of modern Western ideas through ribs of China’s rigid traditions’. (Terrill)

‘intellectually and socially one of the most promising and exciting times in Chinese history’ (Mitter)

Question 6

Soong Meiling

Purpose of NLM

Answer 6

‘substituting a retreat to Confucius for an advance to Marx’

Question 7

W + R

NLM

Answer 7

‘Confucian Fascism’ (Wakeman)

NLM achieved very little except for ‘intruding into people’s personal lives’ (Ryan)

Question 8

Jiang + R

Reason for pursuing the CCP instead of Japan

Answer 8

‘The Japanese are a disease of the skin… The Communists are a disease of the soul’

‘national unity had to take precedence over foreign affairs, as external threats could not be addressed by a divided nation.’ (Ryan)

Question 9

Rooney

Misuse of lend-lease

Answer 9

JJ “was double-dealing on a colossal scale”

Question 10

Jiang

Sino-Japanese War strategy

Answer 10

‘saving the nation by the winding path’

Question 11

Brooks Anderson (NYT correspondent)

GMD’s priorities

Answer 11

“more concerned with maintaining its political supremacy than in driving the Japanese out of China”

Question 12

NRA saying

Answer 12

“Three Don’t Cares: 1. Don’t Care to fight. 2. Don’t care about the people. 3. Don’t care about myself.”

Question 13

B + R

GMD weaknesses

Answer 13

Almost ‘every major area of the Nationalist military weakness was an area of Red Army strength’ + ‘Conscription, a tragedy in the government-controlled areas, was an honour in Liberated Areas’ (Bianco)

Nationalists seemed to ‘specialise in keeping land and losing men’ (Ryan)

Question 14

Z + B + F + Y

Significance of Yuan Shikai

Answer 14

“the true face of the 1911 Revolution belonged to Yuan Shikai, not Sun Yat-sen” (Zarrow)

YS = ‘opportunist’ (Bianco)

YS had “No vision of a new political system” (Fairbank)

“Yuan Shih-Kai usurped power and threw the whole nation into the abyss again…’ (Yu-chang)

Question 15

S + L
Significance of the May Fourth Movement

Answer 15

“beginning of a credible and important nationalist movement, albeit an urban one.” (Short)

“gave a sense of direction to radicals and revolutionaries” (Lynch)

Question 16

Sun Yat-sen

Rationale for accepting Soviet assistance for 1UF

Answer 16

“to clutch that Russian straw. I know it is a straw, but it is better than nothing.”

Question 17

Li Dazhao

Rationale for 1UF

Answer 17

“we cannot afford to have our revolutionary forces divided”

Question 18

M

Jiang’s rationale for Shanghai Massacre

Answer 18

“It was a major threat to Jiang since the strikers would greatly outnumber his troops.” (Meisner)

Question 19

H

Significance of Shanghai Massacre

Answer 19

“the left faction of the GMD ‘remained a house divided against itself…its leaders had become rivals for power” (Helmut)

Question 20

Chen Duxui

State of the 1UF after Shanghai Massacre

Answer 20

‘like taking a bath in shit’

Question 21

W + D + S
Jiangxi Soviet

Answer 21

‘Necessity was the mother of the CCP’s reinvention’ (Womack)

‘social laboratory’ (Davin)

“Mao Zedong deliberately used the Jiangxi Soviet Republic to counter-balance his opponents who were in control of the Party organisation.” (Shiping)

Question 22

Sun

Futian purges

Answer 22

Futian purges were “total madness” but “Nobody dared tell Mao that. They were too scared” to expose the nonsense of his paranoia

Question 23

Mao

Red Army

Answer 23

‘These people are capable of fighting bravely, and, if properly led, can become a revolutionary force’

Question 24

Mao

The Well-being of the Masses, 1934

Answer 24

“We should convince the masses that we represent their interests – that our lives are intimately bound up with theirs”

Question 25

Jiang

Rationale for fascism

Answer 25

Fascism = ‘stimulant for a declining society’

Question 26

Mao

1927

Answer 26

“A revolution is not a dinner party”

Question 27

S + S + J

Credibility of the Long March

Answer 27

LM = ‘the biggest armed propaganda tour in history’ (Snow)

LM = ‘nightmare of death and pain while it was in progress’ (Spence)

LM = ‘a true story exploited for propaganda purposes’ (Jocelyn)

Question 28

M + D

Significance of the LM

Answer 28

‘Mao was the prophet who would lead survivors through the wilderness’ (Meisner)

‘Although the LM was a tactical defeat, it had very beneficial psychological and organisational effects’ (Dietrich)

Question 29

R + L

Yenan Soviet

Answer 29

‘Mao and his comrades built a thriving community in this impoverished rural backwater’ (Ryan)

‘He made Marxism fit the Chinese situation, not the Chinese situation fit Marxism’ (Lynch)

Question 30

M + R + B

GMD vs CCP during Sino-Japanese War

Answer 30

‘The Party was functioning very much as a nationalist organisation; indeed, it was struggling for nationalist goals more vigorously and more competently than the GMD” (Moise)

“Jiang’s unwillingness to confront J brought his govt into disrepute” (Ryan)

Almost ‘every major area of the Nationalist military weakness was an area of Red Army strength’ (Bianco)

Question 31

R + R
Sino-Japanese War

Answer 31

“humanitarian tragedy” (Ryan)

JJ “was double-dealing on a colossal scale” (Rooney)

Question 32

Stillwell

GMD war effort

Answer 32

Nat war effort by 1938 = “practically zero” + govt X able to “get the idea of offensive into their heads” (Stilwell)

Question 33

Mao

Criticism of US support of GMD

Answer 33

“No nation needs to prop us up”

Question 34

Mao

CCP civil war strategy

Answer 34

‘Hu came in like a fist. We forced him open like a hand; now we are cutting off the fingers one by one.’