CHANGING FACES IN THE CHINESE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION: PARTY MEMBERS AND ORGANIZATION BUILDING IN TWO JIAODONG COUNTIES 1928-1948. by YANG WU A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (History) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2013 © Yang Wu 2013 Abstract The revolution of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the 1920s to the late 1940s was a defining moment in China’s modern history. It dramatically restructured Chinese society and created an authoritarian state that remains the most important player in shaping the country’s development today. Scholars writing to explain the success of the revolution began with trying to uncover factors outside of the party that helped to bring it to power, but have increasingly emphasized the ability of party organizations and their members to direct society to follow the CCP’s agendas as the decisive factor behind the party’s victory. Despite highlighting the role played by CCP members and the larger party organization in the success of the revolution studies have done little to examine how ordinary individuals got involved in the CCP at different stages and locations. Nor have scholars analyzed in depth the process of how the CCP molded millions of mostly rural people who joined it from the 1920s to the 40s into a disciplined force to seize control of China. Through a study of the CCP’s revolution in two counties of Jiaodong, a region of Shandong province in eastern China during this period my dissertation explores this process by focusing on their local party members. It also expands on the subject of how the CCP became a cohesive organization by looking at how the party dealt with the issue of localism. This latter subject is very pertinent to understanding the CCP’s development, since the party managed to become an effective national organization in a country whose populace was heavily divided by regional and local ties. My study concludes that local ties were major impediments to cohesion in the CCP, and that the party’s central leaders imposed their authority in Jiaodong by weakening these ties down through purges, ideological education and class struggle. These programs made the CCP in Jiaodong a top down organization that was dependent on the directions from Mao Zedong, the CCP’s paramount leader and his loyalists. They also sowed the seeds for the next thirty years of constant Maoist political campaigns. ii Preface This dissertation is an original and unpublished work. It is the product of years of research that I have conducted in three archives in China as well as several other institutions, such as the United States National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland, the Harvard Yenching Library, Hoover Institution of War and Peace in Stanford University and the National Library of China in Beijing. All figures and maps in my dissertation are either original creations that I made or modifications of maps found in works published in the People’s Republic of China or Taiwan, which are not subject to copyright restrictions. iii Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ii Preface ............................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. iv List of Figures, Maps and Illustrations ......................................................................... vii Glossary .......................................................................................................................... viii List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... xi Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ xiii Dedication ....................................................................................................................... xiv Chapter 1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The Evolution of a Party Member-Based View of the CCP's rise to Power in China .......... 2 1.2 An Approach in Need of Study ............................................................................................. 9 1.3 My Study and its Treatment of Party Members and Organization Development ............... 10 1.4 Methodology, Sources and the Layout of the Thesis .......................................................... 13 Chapter 2: Violent Beginnings: Young Men and the Emergence of Revolutionary Politics in Haiyang/Rushan ............................................................................................ 21 2.1 People Behind the Attacks: The Story of Yu Xingfu .......................................................... 21 2.2 Yu Xingfu's Homeland ........................................................................................................ 24 2.3 A Time of Turmoil .............................................................................................................. 26 2.4 Troubles: Convulsions of Violence ..................................................................................... 31 2.5 Great Turmoil: 1928-1929 .................................................................................................. 32 2.6 Decline of Old Leadership, Rise of Young Men: An Analysis of the Protests ................... 35 2.7 Aspiring Revolutionaries .................................................................................................... 40 2.8 "Revolution" in the Midst of Turmoil ................................................................................. 45 2.9 A New Order ....................................................................................................................... 49 2.10 Shaping of Revolutionaries: Basis for CCP Development ................................................ 50 Chapter 3: Tough Start: A History of the Early CCP ................................................. 53 3.1 Birth of the Party and Tensions in the Process.................................................................... 53 3.2 Violent Teachers: Causes Behind the Rise and Fall of the Early Haiyang/Rushan CCP.... 55 3.3 Weak Ties with the National CCP, Growing Government Persecution .............................. 57 3.4 Beginnings of the CCP: Western Haiyang and the Background to the Party’s Spread ...... 59 3.5 Quarrels Between Young Men and the Implosion of the East Laiyang Organization ........ 60 3.6 The CCP’s Spread into Western Haiyang ........................................................................... 62 3.7 Expansion of Followers and Radicalization of Party Activists During the Great Turmoil of 1928-1929 ................................................................................................................................. 63 3.8 Beginnings of the CCP: Eastern Haiyang/Rushan .............................................................. 66 3.9 Teaching Ties: Connections and the Linking of Local and Provincial Parties: 1931-1932 67 3.10 Linking of Radicals: Eastern Haiyang and Southern Muping ........................................... 69 3.11 Linking of Radicals: Western Haiyang ............................................................................. 70 3.12 Troubled Expansion: 1932-1933 ....................................................................................... 72 3.13 Failed Unrest in Eastern Haiyang: Late 1932 ................................................................... 74 3.14 Heyday and Collapse: Western Haiyang and Laiyang, 1933 ............................................ 75 3.15 Last Stand: Eastern Haiyang and Southern Muping: 1934-1935 ...................................... 82 iv 3.16 Journeys ............................................................................................................................ 90 Chapter 4: War and the Remaking of the Local Party ............................................... 94 4.1 Rebirth of the Haiyang and Rushan Area Party .................................................................. 94 4.2 Initial Activities in Haiyang and Rushan: the Backdrop ..................................................... 95 4.3 Initial Bid for Power: 1938 ................................................................................................. 98 4.4 Opportunity for Action ...................................................................................................... 100 4.5 Collapse of the Endeavour ................................................................................................ 101 4.6 Expansion: Early 1939 ...................................................................................................... 102 4.7 Seizure of Power: 1940-1941 ............................................................................................ 103 4.8 Effects of War: A New Party ............................................................................................ 107 4.9 Dynamics Behind the Changing Membership .................................................................. 108 4.10 A Case Study of the Impact of War on the CCP in One Village ...................................