Journal of Chinese Military History 7 (2018) 203-231 brill.com/jcmh Militia Command and Control in the Chinese National Revolution, Hunan 1926-1927 Edward A. McCord The George Washington University [email protected] Abstract This article uses a case study of Hunan province to examine the role of militia in the struggle for the control of local society during the 1926-1927 National Revolution. Although the Nationalist and Communist Parties both agreed on the need eliminate militia leadership by “local bullies and evil gentry,” differences quickly arose over how to reconstruct militia following this action. Nationalist Party activists tended to favor a “statist” approach that would replace abusive militia leaders with “upright” local elites but place them under stricter and more direct official control. Communist Party activ- ists in contrast sought a “popular” mass militia free of elite influence and controlled by new peasant and worker unions. As such, this struggle over militia command and control became a key component in the broader political competition between the two parties and their alternative revolutionary visions. Keywords China – militia – Chinese Nationalist Revolution – First United Front The command and control of militia in modern China, in the broad sense of leadership and supervising authority, was always complicated by its location in the “public realm” where state and society came together not only to pur- sue their mutual interests (in this case local security) but also to compete over local resources. Militia by their very nature were understood to be community organizations; nonetheless, given their control of military force some degree of state authorization and supervision was always assumed. Depending on specific circumstances, the footprint of the state in militia organization, and © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/22127453-12341332Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 11:47:48AM via free access 204 McCord alternately the relative autonomy of local militia leadership, could exhibit con- siderable variation. In periods of state weakness or inattention, militia could become important bases of nearly autonomous local power. In other periods, most notably the Nanjing decade, the state could intervene more directly in militia organization to reconfigure them into arms of state power.1 In this way, shifting patterns of militia organization and leadership in modern China pro- vide insights into broader social and political changes. As a case in point, a radical effort to reconstitute the command and control of militia during China’s 1926-1927 Nationalist Revolution, carried out in the wake of a military campaign to defeat warlordism and reunify the country, re- flected the competing social and political visions that underlay this revolution. To a certain extent all participants in this revolution shared a basic critique of militia that had arisen following the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912. Civil war and the growth of banditry had led to the rapid expansion of militia in provinces such as Hunan. As these forces grew in size they also provided new opportunities for corruption and the abuse of power by local militia leaders. As the National Revolutionary Army entered Hunan in 1926, revolutionary activ- ists generally concluded that “local bullies and evil gentry” (tuhao lieshen 土 豪劣紳) who commanded militia forces presented a significant threat to the establishment of revolutionary power in the countryside. Therefore, the take- over and reorganization of militia became a key feature of the revolutionary agenda. The Hunan experience revealed an early division within the revolution- ary camp as to how this militia reorganization should take place—roughly marking the differing approaches of the Nationalist and Communist parties, putative allies in the revolutionary enterprise. Initially the new revolutionary provincial government in Hunan proposed a largely statist approach, seeking to eliminate local abuses by increasing official and bureaucratic supervision. Their overriding goal was to reinforce the true “community” nature of militia organizations to benefit the people as a whole. In contrast, following the estab- lishment of peasant and worker associations, social revolution activists sought to remake local militia into peasant and worker self-defense forces as a means of establishing class-based military power. The struggle for the control of local militia, then, did not just pit revolutionaries against counter-revolutionary elites, but also involved competing statist and class-based visions of revolu- tion. This struggle over militia organization reflected in a microcosm the ten- sions between the revolutionary approaches, and the political interests, of the 1 McCord 1999. Journal of Chinese Military DownloadedHistory from 7 (2018) Brill.com09/27/2021 203-231 11:47:48AM via free access Militia Command and Control 205 Nationalist and Communist parties that would ultimately end in the rupture of the United Front between them. 1 The National Revolution and Statist Militia Reforms The rapid expansion of militia in Hunan in the early Republic was a natural response to threats to local order brought on by recurring civil war and a con- current explosion of banditry.2 This situation was exacerbated by the emer- gence of warlordism as military commanders became less willing to expend their own “military capital” to police local society.3 The expansion of local mi- litia, then, was primarily driven by local concerns but also actively promoted by a range of state authorities, military and civil, as the best means of restor- ing order in a troubled time.4 The combination of haphazard local efforts and official promotions led to a proliferation of militia forces of various sizes and types, appearing under a confusing array of names.5 Although militia were intended to be beneficial forces, as local power re- sources they could also wreak havoc on local communities. Militia regulations had traditionally called on local gentry to take charge of managing militia, on the assumption, or perhaps hope, that the resulting militia would truly serve community interests. Instead, the increasing importance of militia in local power structures opened the way for abuses by militia forces and cor- ruption by militia leaders. This was particularly true as the dominant form of militia increasingly became standing forces of full-time militiamen armed with guns. By the 1920s common militia critiques charged militia leaders with having become “authorities unto themselves” (gezi weizheng 各自為政) who did not hesitate to interfere in civil administration, execute suspects without 2 McCord 1988, 176-82. 3 In early 1926, the commander of the Hunan Army 2nd Division reminded magistrates from his garrison area of their duty to organize militia as a defense against banditry. He observed that military forces often changed garrison area and might be mobilized for war at any time, making them unreliable for keeping local order. Dagongbao, January 25, 1926. 4 The Beiyang warlord who ruled Hunan from 1917 to 1920, Zhang Jingyao, issued repeated orders for the organization of militia. Dagongbao, June 27 and September 26, 1918; Hunan zhengbao, 1918, no. 22, 61. After Zhang’s ouster, successive Hunanese governors, provincial assemblies, government agencies, and even local military commanders issued similar orders. Dagongbao, July 14 and 21, 1920; November 16, 1920; December 2, 1921, March 1, 1923; February 12, 1924, February 25-26, 1925; April 7, 1925; January 29, 1926. 5 One commentary noted the wide diversity of militia of varying sizes appearing under the names aihutuan, baoweituan, and tuanfang. Dagongbao, January 13, 1923. Journal of Chinese Military History 7 (2018) 203-231Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 11:47:48AM via free access 206 McCord authorization, enrich themselves with unnecessary taxes and fines, use their power to carry out private revenge, and collude with bandits.6 Such militia abuses were met in turn with recurring proposals for militia reform, often expressed in calls for stronger government control.7 As compet- ing forms of local military power, though, conflicts between militia and offi- cial armies were as likely as cooperation. Although some warlord authorities sought to reform (or better control) local militia, they were just as likely to see militia as reserves to be incorporated into their own forces than to seek to improve their performance.8 While the disorderly political conditions of the time ultimately stood in the way of any concentrated effort at militia reform, the stage was set for more expansive efforts to reform, reorganize, and even re- conceptualize militia under the auspices of the 1926-1927 National Revolution. Hunan’s emergence as the initial front of the National Revolution’s anti- warlord Northern Expedition originated in an internal military struggle in the province. In March 1926, Tang Shengzhi, commander of one of Hunan’s four army divisions, carried out a coup against the Hunan governor Zhao Hengti. Hunan’s other commanders then united under another division commander to force Tang to abandon the provincial capital at Changsha on May 4, 1926 and return to his base in south Hunan. At that point Tang sought external support by allying himself with the growing power of the Nationalist Party government in Canton. In early June, Tang announced his support for the Party’s National Revolution and received appointments as the commander of the National Rev- olutionary 8th Army and Northern