0 MILITARISM AND THE CHINESE COMMUNISTS: A STUDY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNIST POLITICAL AUTHORITY IN THE SHANSI-CHAHAR-HOPEI BORDER REGION AND THE SHANTUNG GUERRILLA AREA, 1937-1940 by GARY DON WEKKIN B.A., University of Wisconsin, 1971 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of P o l i t i c a l Science We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September, 1972 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Br i t ish Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Gary Don Wekkln Department of P o l i t i c a l Science The University of Br i t ish Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada i Abstract P o l i t i c a l scientists generally recognize two explanations of the extensive peasant support which the Chinese Communist Party acquired i n North China during the so-called "Yenan Period"of 1937-1945* One theory posits that the North Chinese peasants gave their allegiance and support to the Chinese Communists at this time because the Communists were the only force resisting the Japanese invasion and occupation of North China; the second theory claims that the peasants supported the Communists because Communist agrar-ian reforms at this time liberated the peasants from centuries of poverty and class exploitation. Unfortunately, the sharp debate which has taken place between the adherents of these two theories has tended to obscure the search for additional explanations of Communist growth during the Yenan Period. Reliable Communist sources and eco-nomic surveys indicate that i n two key Communist base areas, the "pea-sant nationalism" and "agrarian revolution" theories do not explain pre-1940 Communist growth as well as they explain post-1940 Communist growth — additional research on the growth of Communist p o l i t i c a l authority prior to 1940 i s needed. This thesis contends that a comparison of the public be-haviour of the Communist armies with that of the warlord armies which preceded them i n North China helps explain why Communist rule was accepted by so many peasants during the years 1937-1940. Rape, loot-ing, terror, and crushing military taxes were common fare for the millions of North Chinese peasants who lived under warlord rule from the death of Yuan Shih-k'ai i n 1916 u n t i l the Japanese invasion i n i i 1937, In contrast, the Communist amies were indoctrinated against molestation of the peasantry, and made every effort to help the peasants economically rather than burden than. The peasants were favorably Impressed by the virtuous behaviour of the Communist soldiers, and gave their backing to the p o l i t i c a l movement these s o l * diers represented. I i i i Table of Contents Introduction 1 Inadequacies of the Peasant Nationalism Theory 4 Inadequacies of the Agrarian Revolution Theory 15 Warlord Destruction and Peasant Alienation in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung 26 Communist Military Behaviour in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung 45 Bibliography 68 1 I n t r o d u c t i o n P o l i t i c a l s c i e n t i s t s have undertaken many s t u d i e s seeking to e x p l a i n the f o r g i n g of p o l i t i c a l l i n k s between the Chinese Communist movement ?nd the peasants of n o r t h China dur ing the "Yenan P e r i o d " of 1937-1945. So f a r , these s t u d i e s have g e n e r a l l y f a l l e n i n t o two c a t e g o r i e s ; those emphasizing the "peasant n a t i o n a l i s m " which i s sup-posed to have emerged d u r i n g the Ant i - Japanese War (World War I I ) , and the normative and c o e r c i v e power which accrued to the Communists because of t h e i r l e a d e r s h i p d u r i n g the n a t i o n a l s t r u g g l e ; and those d w e l l i n g on the supposed poverty and e x p l o i t a t i o n of C h i n a ' s pea sant ry , and the p r i m a r i l y remunerat ive power generated by Communist a g r a r i a n 1 reforms t Both exp l ana t ions have t h e i r m e r i t s and t h e i r f a u l t s , and much s t i m u l a t i n g and v a l u a b l e debate has taken p l a c e among the adher-ents and d e t r a c t o r s of these two t h e o r i e s , but the c o n c l u s i o n of most s c h o l a r s i s that n e i t h e r e x p l a n a t i o n i s i n i t s e l f f u l l y s a t i s f a c t o r y , d e s p i t e the i n s i s t e n c e otherwise o f a few s c h o l a r s . U n f o r t u n a t e l y , even most of the d i s s a t i s f i e d s c h o l a r s assume t h a t the t r u t h l i e s somewhere in ,be tween the two t h e o r i e s , and do not l o o k elsewhere f o r new e x p l a n a t i o n s . I f i n d i t r e g r e t t a b l e tha t the c o n t r o v e r s y over the Yenan P e r i o d has y e t to over f low the bounds of these two schools of 1. A f c i t a i E t z i o n i g ives a t h r e e - f o l d c l a s s i f i c a t i o n o f " i n t e g r a t i n g power" : c o e r c i v e power ( f o r example, the use of m i l i t a r y f o r c e ) ; u t i l i t a r i a n power ( f o r example, economic i n c e n t i v e s — I p r e f e r to c a l l t h i s remunerat ive power) ; and i d e n t i t i v e power ( f o r example, the appeal to one ' s va lues — a g a i n , I p r e f e r to use the term norm-a t i v e power) . See E t z i o n i , P o l i t i c a l U n i f i c a t i o n : A Comparative Study of Leaders and Forces (New Y o r k : H o l t , R i n e h a r t and W i n s t o n , 1965), PP. 37-39. 2 thought in a search for additional explanatory factors. After exam-ining the available English literature on the Yenan Period, I conclude that while the peasant nationalism and agrarian revolution theories are good explanations of Communist p o l i t i c a l expansion after 1940, they are less adequate explanations of the i n i t i a l development of Com-munist p o l i t i c a l authority during the years 1937-1939, and should be supplemented by an additional explanatory factor. This factor is the considerable normative and remunerative power generated by the appear-ance of well-behaved, p o l i t i c a l l y conscious Communist military units in regions that had suffered the ravages of a generation of warlord militarism. Where previous Chinese armies had indiscriminately over-taxed, looted, and raped, the Communist army gave every possible eco-nomic cooperation to the people, observed s t r i c t moral discipline, restored the c i v i l order upon which economic security is attendant, and treated the peasant masses as fellow humans of real worth. Many Chinese peasants formerly accustomed to military abuse and ex-ploitation ,gave their allegiance to the Communists because of the respect, compassion, and cooperation given them by Communist soldiers. This study w i l l examine two crucial areas of Communist ex-pansion in North China — the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region (Shansi, 2 Chahar, and Hopei provinces) and the Shantung Guerrilla Area — with the intention of demonstrating the role exemplary military behaviour played in the spread of Communist p o l i t i c a l authority in these once 2. Because of my utter lack of information on Chahar, I must confine a l l observations on the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region to Shansi and Hopei. Fortunately, the bulk of the border region l i e s in Shansi and Hopei, and the portion l e f t uncovered is f a i r l y small. 3 warlord-infested areas. The study is divided into four basic parts. In the f i r s t two parts I shall marshal evidence against the peasant nationalism and agrarian revolution theories, and in the third and fourth parts I w i l l offer evidence of warlord depredations causing mil i t a r y - c i v i l i a n tensions, and explain how Communist military be-haviour toward the civilians of North China dissolved those tensions and won much peasant support for the Communist movement. 4 Inadequacies of the Peasant Nationalism Theory The ablest and best known proponent of the peasant nation-alism theory of Chinese Communist success is Chalmers Johnson, and i t 1 is his arguments in Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power that I w i l l concern myself with. Johnson advanced his peasant nationalism thesis as a refutation of those who see the impoverishment of the Chinese peasantry and the agrarian reforms of the Communists as the primary forces attracting the Communists and peasants to each other during the years 1937 to 1945. The agrarian revolution theorists identify rural poverty and feudal oppression as the causes of peasant rebelliousness, and argue that the remunerative and normative attrac-tion of the Communists' agrarian reforms was the key to peasant accep-2 tance of Communist p o l i t i c a l authority. Generally speaking, these theorists devote most of their attention to the remunerative aspects — the rural poverty and the economic reforms — and not the normative aspects at work during the Yenan Period. Johnson attacks this theory on the grounds that the Communist Party's economic reforms during this period were toe diluted in the interest of United Front cohesion to 1. Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolu- tionary China, 1937-1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962). 2. Two studies of the Communist revolution written from this viewpoint are William Hinton's Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1966), and Jan Myrdal's Report from a Chinese Village, trans, by Maurice Michael (New York: Signet, 1955). A classic study supporting the agrarian revolution theory, although written before the Com-munist revolution, i s Richard Henry Tawne/s Land and Labor in China (London: G. Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1932). 5 win peasant support. Their land expropriation and redistribution pro-gram was discarded (except in the case of land belonging to traitors), rents and taxes were only mildly reduced, and yet Communist p o l i t i c a l authority experienced tremendous expansion and peasant support during 3 this same period. Therefore, Johnson reasons that the explanation for this expansion of p o l i t i c a l authority must l i e elsewhere. Johnson argues that the Chinese Communists derived their p o l i t i c a l authority in North China from the peasants' normative iden-t i f i c a t i o n with Communist leadership during the Anti-Japanese War. He claims that "after July 7, 1937, the peasants spontaneously created resistance organizations in many parts of China," and attributes this broad nationalist awakening and immediate peasant mobilization to three factors: the dislocation of local authority caused by the flight of local gentry-officials, in whose absence the " p o l i t i c a l l y i l l i t e r -ate" peasants established their own resistance organizations and welcomed whatever leadership (Communist, KMT remnants, secret societies, etc.) they could find; peasant alienation and suffering at the hands of arrogant, exceedingly brutal Japanese soldiers; and the nationalistic anti-Japanese propaganda the Communists were able to fashion from a l l 4 the i l l - e f f e c t s of the invasion. 3. Johnson, op. c i t . , pp. 16-17. Actually, the Communists re-emphasized agrarian revolution again in 1942, by which time the United Front was united in name only. See Liao Kai-lung, From Yenan to Peking (Peking; Foreign Languages Press, 1954), p. 67; and Mark Selden, The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 207, 231-232. 4. Johnson5 op. c i t . , pp. 2-5, 6 These factors "broke the hold of parochialism on the Chinese peasants" and sensitized them for the f i r s t time to their national identity. Peasants formerly wholly absorbed i n local affairs and con-scious only of whose warlord satrapy they lived i n discovered their 5 "Chinese nationality" i n the face of Japanese adversity. Johnson argues that the Chinese Communists were able to earn the wartime a l -legiance of these anti-Japanese peasants by devoting a l l their ener-gies to the prosecution of the war. The Communists organized and trained the peasants to defend themselves, and then led them i n doing so. Ultimately, these war deeds permanently legitimized Communist p o l i t i c a l -authority i n the eyes of China's nationally conscious pea-6 sant masses. Generally speaking, Johnson's theory i s a necessary, indis-putable component of any completely satisfactory explanation of the development of Communist p o l i t i c a l authority i n China during the Yenan Period. It is particularly applicable to Communist expansion after 1941, when Japan's sadistic "three-all" policy ( " k i l l a l l , burn a l l , destroy a l l " ) i n North China drove many previously uncommitted peasants 7 into the Communist camp. However, Johnson also asserts that peasant 5. Ibid., p. 5* 6. Ibid., pp. 10-11. 7. Ibid., p. 59. According to Johnson, "the essence of the sanko-seisaku ["three-all"] was to surround a given area, to k i l l every-one in i t , and to destroy everything possible so that the area would be uninhabitable i n the future." Communist guerrillas had been i n -f l i c t i n g heavy losses on the Japanese, and the "three-all" policy was intended to destroy cooperation between the Communists and the peasantry (p. 56). Instead, the Communists established governments in 280 new hsien between the i n i t i a t i o n of the "three-all" policy i n July, 1941, and the end of the war in August, 1945 (see p. 193, note 4), 7 n a t i o n a l i s m accounted f o r Communist expansion i n N o r t h China from 8 1937 to 1940, and bases t h i s c l a i m on the s u p p o s i t i o n tha t the Nor th China p e a s a n t r y , w i t h o u t any Communist i n s t i g a t i o n or h e l p , m o b i l i z e d themselves to r e s i s t the Japanese i n v a s i o n i n 1937 and caused the Japanese to r e s o r t to immediate t e r r o r i s m : " . . . the b e l i e f that Japanese t e r r o r i s m was o n l y a response i n k i n d to a p r o v o c a t i v e p o l i c y f i r s t undertaken by the Communists — one designed to f o r c e the hand o f the Japanese at the expense of Chinese c i v i l i a n s — i s on ly p a r t i a l l y c o r r e c t . I t i s t rue tha t the e x i s t e n c e of any su s t a ined Chinese r e s i s t a n c e at a l l was due to the coopera t ion be-tween the l o c a l peasantry and the Communist ve terans of K i a n g s i . However, t h i s coopera t ion was l a r g e l y the product of peasant m o b i l i z a t i o n — a process t h a t was i n i t i a t e d by the Japanese i n v a s i o n . . T h e Communists were the b e n e f i c i -a r i e s and not the main source of t h i s m o b i l i z a t i o n ; t h e i r c o n t r i b u t i o n was the o r g a n i z a t i o n of the m o b i l i z e d peasants , the e s tab l i shment of r e a r - a r e a bases , and the l e a d e r s h i p of e f f e c t i v e g u e r r i l l a war fare ag a in s t the Japanese. These g u e r r i l l a campaigns d i d cause the Japanese to step up t h e i r r e p r i s a l s ( t h i s was p a r t i c u l a r l y t r u e of the Japanese r e -a c t i o n to the Hundred Regiments O f f e n s i v e ) , and t h i s i n t u r n broadened the r u r a l m o b i l i z a t i o n . But the c r e a t i o n of the o r i g i n a l s i t u a t i o n tha t l e d the Japanese to r e s o r t to t e r r o r i s m i n the v i l l a g e s cannot be c r e d i t e d to the Com-m u n i s t s . However, my study of the C h i n - C h ' a - C h i Border Region and the Shantung, G u e r r i l l a Area i n d i c a t e s t h a t , p r i o r to 1940, Japanese b r u -t a l i t y and s e l f - o r g a n i z e d peasant r e s i s t a n c e were the e x c e p t i o n r a t h e r than the r u l e . I contend t h a t Johnson's peasant n a t i o n a l i s m theory does not f u l l y e x p l a i n the 1937-1939 p e r i o d of Communist p o l i t i c a l 8 . Communis t^control led h s i e n governments i n Nor th China grew from 18 i n J anuary , 1938, to 130 i n August , 1939 ( i b i d . , note 4 , p . 193) . Anna L o u i s e Strong confirms tha t Communist expansion i n N o r t h China d u r i n g 1938 was both ex tens ive and e a s i l y accomplished (see " E i g h t h Route Regions i n N o r t h C h i n a " , P a c i f i c A f f a i r s , X I V , No. 2 [ June, 1941] , p . 155) . 9 . I b i d . , p . 49. 8 expansion in North China. The Japanese certainly resorted to brutal-i t y on occasion prior to 19409 and undoubtedly some peasants resisted the Japanese from the moment they entered North China. However, there is much evidence that in the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region and Shantung Guerrilla Area — two key areas of pre-1940 Communist expansion — the Japanese were tactful, resourceful, and seldom brutal in their rela-tions with the peasantry. There is even more evidence that, Communist anti-Japanese propaganda to the contrary, the peasants of Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung were generally devoid of nationalist and patriotic senti-ments during the f i r s t years of the war. 10 Despite reports to the contrary, the Japanese occupying North China during the years 1937-1939 were not entirely obnoxious. Liu Shao-ch'i twice publicly credited the Japanese with a cunning, well thought-out propaganda campaign that effectively appealed to several strata of Chinese society. On March 31, 1938, Liu told cadre trainees during a K'ang Ta (Anti-Japanese Academy) lecture on the problems of establishing the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region that "On the contrar}', the enemy has written many, many slogan notices to deceive the p e o p l e s o m e comrades should not think that Japanese imperialism has adopted only savage measures in dealing with us, such as slaughtering, raping, etc. Actually, Japanese imperialism has also used many, many deceiving policies 10. One source accusing the Japanese of frequent atrocities in the early stages of the war is Michael Lindsay, "The North China Front; A Study of Chinese Guerrillas in Action," Amerasia, VIII, No. 7 (March 31, 1944), p. 106. 11. Liu Shao-Ch'i, "Work Experience in the North China War Zone" (Lecture to K'ang Ta, March 21, 1938), in Henry G. Schwarz,. Liu Shao-ch'i and "People's War": A Report on the Creation of Base Areas in 1938, International Studies, East Asian Series, No. 3 (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Center for East Asian Studies, 1969),-p. 49. 9 Liu stated that Japanese propaganda in the Chin-Ch'a-Chi area stressed that both Japanese and Chinese are members of the same race, that the Chinese are the ancestors of the Japanese and the Japanese owe their culture to the Chinese, that they both share Buddhist heritages, and that they are otherwise similar and compatible. When Japanese sol-diers entering villages saw children, they would "hypocritically carry them in their arms and give them candy.... give cigarettes to the middle-aged people, [and] sometimes...distribute some food among the people to take home, etc."12 This behaviour was certainly a far cry from the brutality which i s supposed to have occurred shortly after the invasion. In another speech on February 5, 1938, Liu noted that the Japanese were also very adept at co-opting the Chinese with honors and material gains, and at exploiting various cleavages to set the 13 Chinese against each other and perhaps enlist them i n Japan's cause. The net effect of these appeals was that the Japanese found many North Chinese who were perfectly willing to cooperate with them, or at least to abstain from cooperation with Chinese forces. Peasants, gentry, and o f f i c i a l s in Shansi province willingly built Japanese de-fense-works for wages, denied aid to the hard-pressed anti-Japanese forces of Warlord General Yen Hsi-shan, and carried out espionage 14 and sabotage tasks for the Japanese. In east Hopei, the Japanese 12. Ibid., p. 49. 13. Liu Shao-cb'i, "The Question of Policy Concerning the Anti-Japanese Guerrilla war" (February 5, 1938), Collected Works of Liu Shao-ch'i, Before 1944 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1969), pp. 54-55, 60-63. 14. Donald G. G i l l i n , Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province, 1911- 1949 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 260-261; see also Schwarz, op. c i t . s p. 10. 10 co-opted l o c a l p o l i t i c a l l eader s i n t o e s t a b l i s h i n g an autonomous, pro-Japanese regime i n l a t e 1935. T h i s puppet " s t a t e " , c a l l e d the Eas t Hopei ( C h i Tung) Autonomous C o u n c i l , was to ac t as a b u f f e r be-tween J a p a n e s e - c o n t r o l l e d Manchuria and the r e s t of C h i n a . I n 1938, Communist fo rce s entered Eas t Hopei to o rgan ize a popular a n t i -Japanese u p r i s i n g , but f a i l e d m i s e r a b l y . Genera l Lu Cheng-ts 'ao c la imed that t h i s u p r i s i n g f a i l e d because the people o f Eas t Hopei had been "duped by the ' f a l s e d o c t r i n e s ' of the Japanese , " and had no s p i r i t o f r e s i s t a n c e . The Japanese co-opted both the peasants and the l eader s of Eas t Hopei w i t h m a t e r i a l gains and " d i s h o n o r a b l e ea se , " and the Communists l a c k e d s u f f i c i e n t cadres and o r g a n i z a t i o n to educate 16 them aga ins t the Japanese. A f t e r w a r d s , Japanese post-mortem p r o -paganda emphasizing the Communists' l a c k o f morale and o r g a n i z a t i o n d u r i n g t h i s e f f o r t made the peasants even more u n c o o p e r a t i v e , and the 17 Communists d i d not r e g a i n a f o o t h o l d i n Eas t Hopei u n t i l 1941. IS Meanwhile , Lu C h e n g - t s ' a o ' s own ant i - Japanese s t r o n g h o l d i n C e n t r a l Hopei was so plagued w i t h Chinese t r a i t o r s and c o l l a b o r a t o r s t h a t he i s s a i d to have gone to the October , 1937 F u p ' i n g Conference 18 w i t h the express purpose of seek ing a s s i s t a n c e i n d e a l i n g w i t h them. 15. L i n d s a y , l o c . c i t . , p . 105; see a l so U . S . , 0 f f i c e o f S t r a t e g i c Se r -v i c e s , Research and A n a l y s i s Branch , The G u e r r i l l a F r o n t i n Nor th C h i n a , R. and A . No. 892 (May 21 , 1943), p . 8. 16. An unnamed, undocumented r e p o r t on the f a i l u r e of the Eas t Hopei u p r i s i n g w r i t t e n by Lu Cheng-ts 'ao i s c i t e d e x t e n s i v e l y i n George E . T a y l o r , The S t r u g g l e f o r Nor th C h i n a , I n s t i t u t e of P a c i f i c R e l a t i o n s I n q u i r y S e r i e s (New Y o r k : I n t e r n a t i o n a l S e c r e t a r i a t , I n s t i t u t e of P a c i f i c R e l a t i o n s , 1940) , pp. 103-104. 17. L i n d s a y , l o c . c i t . , p . 105. 18. I s r a e l E p s t e i n , The P e o p l e ' s War (London: V i c t o r G o l l a n c z , L t d . , 1939), p . 215. 11 Liu Shao-ch'i mentions areas of Hopei where, despite considerable burning and k i l l i n g , Japanese propaganda had convinced the people they had nothing to fear so long as they did not provoke the Japanese. Consequently, these villagers refused to admit Communist military units, whom they blamed for everything they had suffered, into their t e r r i -tory. "It was not without reason that Liu Shao-ch'i told his cadre audience at K'ang Ta, "Comrades! We can see from this that the enemy's 20 deceiving propaganda has been quite effective." Moreover, most of the peasants of Hopei, Shansi, and Shantung failed to demonstrate the anti-Japanese patriotism Chalmers Johnson assigns them. Contrary to p o l i t i c a l unity and mobilization In the face of invasion, North China remained an area of considerable dis-parity in national consciousness. Although North China's c i t i e s and universities contained many nationally conscious people, the peasants outside city walls were conscious only of local p o l i t i c a l affairs and, not knowing that Japan existed, sometimes even thought Japanese 21 troops were just another warlord army. For a whole generation the peasantry had been accustomed to sitting fearfully in the middle of wars between the warlords of North China. S t i l l l i v i n g in a tradi-tional and not a modern society, the peasants saw i t as somebody else's war. Although the educated, urban elements who provided the resistance 19. Liu Shao-ch'i, loc. c i t . (February 5, 1938), pp. 62-63,(March 31, 1938), pp. 49-50. 20. Ibid. (March 31, 1938), p. 50. 21. G i l l i n suggests that most of the peasants of northern Shansi did not even know Japan existed (op. c i t . , p. 261). He is probably correct — in 1936 Hubert Freyn observed that most peasants in northern Hopei hardly knew Japan or Japanese Manchuria existed (Prelude to War; The Chinese Student Rebellion of 1935-1936 [Shanghais The China Journal Publishing Co., 1939J, p. 48). 12 movement with most of i t s organizers and propagandists construed the Anti-Japanese War as an all-out battle for China's survival — a struggle between "we" and "they" — most North China peasants saw the war as yet another in a never-ending series of wars between somebody else — a struggle between "you" and "they" which "we" want no part 22 of. Many sources indicate that this lack of nationalistic fervor was endemic throughout the rural population of the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region and the Shantung Guerrilla Area. Liu Shao-ch'i mentioned the apathy and poor welcome Communist guerrillas had encountered in certain II Hopei locales, and Lu Cheng-ts'ao emphasized the lack of anti-Japanese sentiment among the peasants of East Hopei. Nationalist sentiments were also lacking in many rural areas of Shansi province. Anti-Japanese organizations such as the League for National Salvation through Sacrifice ("Sacrifice League") and Warlord Yen Hsi-shan's "mobilization committees" were extremely successful i n the cit i e s of Shansi, but found very l i t t l e support in the countryside, where p o l i t i c a l conscious-ness, nationalism, and imperialism were not part of the peasantry's 23 traditional world view. Indeed, when the Japanese invaded Shansi, the peasants appear to have offered them immediate assistance rather than immediate resistance! Donald G i l l i n reports that Shansi peasants dug trenches and b u i l t defense-works for Japanese wages, and soma poor peasants and Buddhists spied and sabotaged for the Japanese. They refused medical aid to warlord soldiers wounded while resisting 22. Schwarz, op. c i t . , pp. 17-18. 23. Ibid., p. 9; G i l l i n , op. c i t . , p. 261. 13 the invasion of Shansi. They even mobbed and beat some retreating Chinese soldiers to death with their bare hands; yet they watched in unobtrusive silence while a Japanese pilot repaired his warplane i n a farmer's f i e l d and then flew away unmolested. G i l l i n concludes that the Shansi peasantry, far from spontaneously mobilizing to re-si s t the Japanese invasion, "were unaware of the fundamental difference between Chinese and Japanese and therefore regarded the war with Japan as simply another contest between r i v a l warlords, from which they 24 tried to remain aloof." Shantung, which had suffered Japanese garrisons in Tsirigtao and along the Tsinan-Tsingtao Railroad ever since 1917, experienced "a high degree of irregular m i l i t i a mobilization," but the Eighth Route (Red) Army never succeeded in establishing a large-scale regular army unit there. Consequently, Shantung never achieved the status of a secure anti-Japanese "base area" l i k e the Chin-Ch'a-Chi or Shen-Kan-Ning (Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia) 3order Regions. Roy Hofheinz charges that i n any case where "an effective Communist army should f a i l to appear in a province which since World War I had been garrisoned stead-i l y by Japanese troops...a simple 'peasant nationalism' thesis must 25 yield to the analysis of more complicated factors." In fact, a Chi-nese historian who fought as a guerrilla in Shantung asserts that the 24~ G i l l i n , op. c i t . , pp. 260-261. 25. Roy Hofheinz, Jr., "The Ecology of Chinese Communist Success: Rural Influence Patterns, 1923-1945," in A. Doak Barnett, ed., Chinese Communist Pol i t i c s in Action, Studies in Chinese Govern-ment and P o l i t i c s . No. 1 (Seattle & London: University of Wash-ington Press, 1969), p. 52. 14 peasants there were a t f i r s t " r e l i e v e d " when the i n v a d i n g Japanese 26 drove the Chinese w a r l o r d armies out of Shantung i n 1938. My c o n c l u s i o n i s tha t a l though Johnson's t h e s i s i s a good e x p l a n a t i o n of Communist p o l i t i c a l expansion d u r i n g the years 1941-1945, i t leaves something to be d e s i r e d when a p p l i e d to Communist p o l i t i c a l expansion between 1937 and 1940. There i s much evidence tha t the 1937 Japanese i n v a s i o n d i d not arouse peasant n a t i o n a l con-sc iousness or s t i m u l a t e immediate peasant m o b i l i z a t i o n and r e s i s t a n c e i n C h i n - C h ' a - C h i and Shantung. Indeed, the two s c h o l a r s who f i r s t advocated the peasant n a t i o n a l i s m t h e s i s , George T a y l o r and M i c h a e l L i n d s a y , both admit that l i t t l e n a t i o n a l i s t sentiment e x i s t e d among the Nor th China peasants d u r i n g the f i r s t two or three years of the 27 war . How does one e x p l a i n the h i g h r a t e of Communist growth d u r i n g t h i s t i m e , then? Donald G i l l i n s t r o n g l y a s s e r t s that Communist growth d u r i n g the Yenan P e r i o d — and p a r t i c u l a r l y d u r i n g the e a r l y y e a r s , 1937-1939 — i s bes t e x p l a i n e d i n terms of the a g r a r i a n r e v o l u t i o n t h e o r y . 26. Wang Yu-chuan, "The O r g a n i z a t i o n of a T y p i c a l G u e r r i l l a Area i n South Shantung , " i n Evans Fordyce C a r l s o n , The Chinese Army; I t s O r g a n i z a t i o n and M i l i t a r y E f f i c i e n c y , I n s t i t u t e of P a c i f i c R e l a -t i o n s I n q u i r y S e r i e s (New Y o r k ; I n t e r n a t i o n a l S e c r e t a r i a t , I n -s t i t u t e of P a c i f i c R e l a t i o n s , 1940), p . 91 . 27, T a y l o r , op. c i t . , pp . 98-99; L i n d s a y , l o c . c i t . , p . 105. 15 Inadequacies o f the A g r a r i a n R e v o l u t i o n Theory 1 I n the minds of many a g r a r i a n r e v o l u t i o n t h e o r i s t s , the i s s u e of l and tenancy was the cause o f most problems i n p r e - r e v o l u -t i o n a r y C h i n a . They b e l i e v e that many, i f not most Chinese peasants were t e n a n t s , and tha t the l a n d l o r d ' s share of the harve s t was exor -b i t a n t w h i l e the peasant ' s l o t was pover ty and m i s e r y . T h e i r e x p l a n -a t i o n of peasant acceptance of Communist p o l i t i c a l a u t h o r i t y hinges around the v a r i o u s Communist a g r a r i a n reforms which l i b e r a t e d the peasantry from t h e i r oppressed, s e r f - l i k e s t a t u s v i s - a - v i s the gentry and the urban b o u r g e o i s i e . They deduce that the Chinese peasantry must have been s e v e r e l y oppressed and impover i shed by the f e u d a l e lements ' h i g h r e n t s and i n t e r e s t r a t e s s imply because of the f requent occurrence of ac t s of c l a s s v i o l e n c e d u r i n g the Communist r e v o l u t i o n . G i l l i n c l a ims that when the Red Army invaded Shans i from n e i g h b o r i n g Shens i p r o v i n c e i n 1935-1936, 15,000 Shans i peasants v o l u n t e e r e d to e n l i s t i n the Red Army because the Communists had p lundered and o f t e n 2 k i l l e d the r i c h and shared t h e i r wea l th w i t h the poor . A l though they d i d not have time to e f f e c t a sy s temat ic program of l a n d r e f o r m , they d i d r e d i s t r i b u t e some l a n d as w e l l as c o n f i s c a t e d w e a l t h , and a c c o r d -i n g to a Japanese observer were greeted as " t h e army of the poor" 3 when they r e t u r n e d to Shans i two years l a t e r to f i g h t the Japanese. L i k e the peasant n a t i o n a l i s m t h e o r y , the a g r a r i a n r e v o l u t i o n theory must be i n c l u d e d i n any f u l l e x p l a n a t i o n of the growth of Com-1. Supra , p . 4 , note 2. 2 . G i l l i n , op. c i t . , pp. 225-226. 3. See i b i d . , p . 227. / 16 munist p o l i t i c a l authority during the Yenan Period. But, like the peasant nationalism theory, the agrarian revolution theory also leaves something to be desired as an explanation of pre-1940 Communist growth in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung. One principal shortcoming of the agrarian revolution theory is the fact that the Communists heavily diluted their agrarian reforms in the interest of United Front cooper-ation during the years 1937-1940. They stopped taking property away from the landlords and redistributing i t among the poor, and rents were only mildly reduced. As one strong supporter of the agrarian revolution theory of Communist success admits, "...from 1937 to 1940 in Shen-Kan-Ning and the newly-created base areas, no special effort was made to implement rent reductions. Beyond the strong commitment to preserve the revolutionary gains of land redistribution and to guarantee private ownership of land, i t might almost be said that at this time there was no land policy. Landlordism and related problems of exploitation were assumed to have been basically eliminated.and problems of land tenure were rarely men-tioned. Neither in the laws and documents of the f i r s t re-gional council (1939) nor in the extensive party and govern-ment publications of the period 1937 to 1939 is rent reduction discussed.^ Only after a year of KMT blockading and the unprovoked KMT attack on Communist headquarters and hospital units during the "New Fourth Army Incident" in January, 1941, did the Communists reintroduce radical 5 land redistribution and rental reduction policies. Chalmers Johnson concludes that "the Communists' success [during the Yenan Period] can-6 not be attributed to their carrying out an 'agrarian revolution'." Although this conclusion is obviously hasty as far as the entire Yenan 4. Selden, op. c i t . , p. 230. 5. Ibid., p. 230. 6. Johnson, op. c i t . , p. 17. 17 Period is concerned, i t does appear that the agrarian revolution theory i s better applied to post-1940 Communist growth than to pre-1940 Communist growth. Also damaging to the agrarian revolution argument is a store of reliable but usually ignored economic data which seriously chal-lenges the validity of two popular suppositions about the economic background of the Chinese Revolution. One i s the supposition of wide-spread peasant tenancy, and the other i s the supposition of peasant 7 indebtedness to usurous gentry moneylenders. The peasants of North China were undeniably poor, and the Communists undoubtedly gained much peasant support because of the remunerative appeal of some of their agrarian programs and their campaigns against class exploita-tion. But much evidence indicates that while tenancy and landlord usury may have been rampant elsewhere in China, they did not contri-bute significantly to rural poverty in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung. This evidence, unlike the case-study type of evidence found in most studies supporting the agrarian revolution theory, comes from extensive, quantitative empirical studies by economists John Lossing Buck and Ramon Myers. Buck surveyed a total of 1,677 farms in Shansi, 1,433 farms in Hopei, and 1,400 farms in Shantung in the course of 8 producing his Chinese Farm Economy and Land Utilization in 7. These suppositions are often treated as though tenancy and usury were universal characteristics in pre-revolutionary China. See, for example, the statements made by several Chinese scholars in Section one of Agrarian China; Selected Source Materials from Chinese Authors, comp. and trans, by Research Staff of the Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations (Shanghai; Kelly and Walsh, 1938), pp. 1-56. 8. Chinese Farm Economy; A Study of 2866 Farms in Seventeen Localities and Seven Provinces in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930). 18 9 10 China, while Ramon Myers' The Chinese Peasant Economy presents data from extensive farm surveys in Hopei and Shantung by Buck, the South Manchurian Railway Company, the Chinese National Land Commission, and the Chinese Central Government Agricultural Experimental Station. This data, which is too voluminous to present in detail and w i l l only be summarized here, suggests that tenancy was not a serious problem in most of the locales studied. Only roughly seven per cent of the pea-sants surveyed in Shansi, Hopei, and Shantung were pure tenants, and only about 17 per cent were owner-tenants — the remaining 76 per cent 11 of the peasants surveyed owned a l l of the land they fanned. One of these tenancy surveys has been broken down into d i s t r i c t tenancy rates and compared to a map showing the location of 12 hsien under Communist control as of August, 1939. A close look at Map 1 indicates that, with one or two exceptions, high rates of tenancy cannot be found in the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region or the 9. Land Utilization in China: A Study of 16,786 Farms in 168 Local- i t i e s and Seven Provinces in China (Chicago?. University of Chicago Press, 1937) . 10. The Chinese Peasant Economy; Agricultural Development in Hopei and Shantung, 1390-1949 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970). 11. The reader should be cautioned that these percentages are only rough aggregates — the findings of several surveys luiapedt tor . gether — and could be in error by as much as two or three perfcenr-tage points either way. See ibid., p. 303, and Buck, op. c i t ; *•";' (1937), pp. 194-196. For aii interesting picture of tenancy rates in 36'Shansi, Hopei j and 'Shantung d i s t r i c t s , see the d i s t r i c t -by-district breakdown of Buck's findings in Land Utilization in China: S t a t i s t i c a l Volume (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937), pp. 57-59. 12. Buck's second and more comprehensive survey (1,200 Shansi farms, 1,000 Hopei farms, and 1,400 Shantung farms). See his s t a t i s t i c a l volume, pp. 57-59. • 1 9 MAP 1 TENANCY AND COMMUNIST POLITICAL AUTHORITY IN CHIN-CH'A-CHI AND SHANTUNG, AUGUST, 1939.3 Adapted from Buck, Land Utilization In China: Atlas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937), pp. 3-5; and Chalmers Johnson, op. c i t . , p. 119 (Map of Communist expansion in North China as of August, 1939). The dots represent Communist-governed d i s t r i c t s (Johnson notes that far too few Communist districts are shown i n Shantung), and the numbers represent the percentage of pure ten-ants found in each district surveyed during Buck's study. 20 Shantung Guerrilla Area, or anywhere else in Shansi. Hopei, and Shan-tung. In the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region, only one d i s t r i c t shews a high tenancy rate, while eight other dis t r i c t s sport tenancy rates of under five per cent. Two moderately high tenancy rates may be found in the Shantung Guerrilla Area (where there should be more Communist-13 controlled hsien than are. shown) , but six districts with almost no tenancy can also be found there. Ramon Myers concludes that the degree of tenancy in Hopei, Shantungs and the rest of North China was the same in 1937, the year the Communists began expanding into the area, as i t had been in 1880; i f tenancy rates changed at a l l during this 14 time, they changed for the better. Nor were Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung peasants in debt to landlords or other usurous feudal elements, as agrarian theorists are wont to claim. On the contrary, most peasants in need of credit bor-rowed from their friends, relatives, or neighbors. Buck's second study revealed that considerably less than five per cent of a l l peasants sur-veyed in Shansi, Hopei, and Shantung borrowed money from landlords, merchants, or mortgagors when they needed credit, while about 40 per 15 cent borrowed from their friends, relatives, and neighbors. However, low tenancy rates and indebtedness to persons of lower class background do not necessarily indicate peasant prosperity. It was quite possible for peasants owning their own land to be poor. 13. See Johnson's footnote (op. c i t . , p, 117) to his map. 14. Myers, op. c i t . , pp. 235-288. 15. Buck, op. c i t . (1937, s t a t i s t i c a l volume), p. 404; see also Myers, op. c i t . , p. 288. The remaining 55 per cent cf the peasants sur-veyed borrowed from other sources (farmers,neighboring villages, "wealthy persons", etc.) or never borrowed money. 21 Their farms may not have been large enough to grow sufficient food and cash crops, or operating costs, heavy taxes, banditry, and floods may have kept them constantly in debt. Land concentration data from Buck's second survey indicates that only 10-15 t>er cent of a l l farm I 1 16 land surveyed in Shansi, Hopei, and Shantung was rented; but land iconcentration rates varied considerably from one d i s t r i c t to the next in Chin-Ch'a-Chi, as Map Twc indicates, and south Shantung, which is reputed to have had some large landlord holdings, is not adequately surveyed. Yet Buck is satisfied that the average peasant farm was large enough to earn a l i v i n g from, and says that antiquated Chinese farming methods, rather than size of farm or patterns of land owner-ship or class exploitation, were chiefly to blame for such rural pov-17 erty as existed i n China at this time. Consequently, i t is d i f f i c u l t to draw conclusions either way about the equitability of the size of land holdings in the Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung areas. It is equally d i f f i c u l t to draw any conclusions about pea-sant indebtedness in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung. Debts meant big trouble for peasants, even i f they did borrow from friends and stay clear of grasping landlords and mortgagors. The times were inflation-ary, and even friends, relatives,and neighbors demanded extremely high interest rates because the real value of the principal (even 18 silver) was forever decreasing. Indeed, sometimes credit could be 16. Ibid., p. 38; see also p. 195 of Buck's text (1937). 17. Buck, "Fact and Theory about China's Land," Foreign Affairs, XXVIII, No. I (October, 1949), pp. 92-101. See also Myers (op. c i t . , p. 292) on this question. 18. H. Brian Low, "The Standard of Living,''' in Buck, op. c i t . (1937), chapter XV, pp. 463-464. 22 MAP 2 PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL FARM ACREAGE UNDER RENT1 Buck, Land U t i l i z a t i o n i n China: Atlas, p. 38; superimposed on Johnson's map of Communist d i s t r i c t s in August, 1939 (op. c i t . , p. 119). The numbers represent the percentage of total farm land farmed by tenants rather than owner-operators. 23 obtained raore cheaply from landlords and other "exploiters" than from friends, relatives, and neighbors who could less afford the risk of inflation eating away their principal and interest. However, both Buck and Myers conclude that the peasant stan-dard of l i v i n g in North China during the 1920's and 1930's was, ex-cept for periods of destructive c i v i l warfare, drought, or flooding, on the upswing. A survey of 39 loc a l i t i e s in Shansi, Hopei, and Shantung found 36 loc a l i t i e s reporting increases in their standard of liv i n g , two loc a l i t i e s reporting no change in their standard of l i v i n g , 19 and only one reporting a decrease. The survey indicated that almost a l l peasants were eating better food and weariogbetter clothing than they had previously, and that many were using kerosene instead of o i l lamps and had installed ti l e d roofs in place of thatched roofs on 20 their homes. Peasants in the few districts not reporting a quali-tative increase in food intake had opted to sow cash crops in response 21 to high market prices instead of crops for their own consumption. In Shansi, four districts containing twelve loc a l i t i e s were surveyed, and a l l reported that their standard of living had gone up since 1910. Two of these d i s t r i c t s , Pingting and Showyang, are right in the heart of the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region, while a third (Ningwu) is on i t s periphery. In Hopei, loc a l i t i e s in seven dis t r i c t s were surveyed, and a l l reported increases in the standard of l i v i n g except two of three loca l i t i e s in Fup'ing which reported| no change. Of these seven dis t r i c t s 19~! Buck, op. c i t . (1937, s t a t i s t i c a l volume), pp. 400-401. 20. Ibid., pp. 400-401; see also Myers, op. c i t . , pp. 208-210. 21. Myers, op. c i t . , p. 210. 24 Fup'ing, Chengting, Ting, and Kiaoho are located in the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region. Eight districts in Shantung x^ere surveyed, and increases in prosperity showed in a l l but one of two lo c a l i t i e s surveyed in Tangyi d i s t r i c t . Only one of these eight districts can be said to be in the Shantung Guerrilla Area for certain, and that is the d i s t r i c t 22 of Lich'eng, just outside of Tsinan, which reported a solid increase. In conclusion, the theory that the Communists were able to expand in North China because of the remunerative attraction of their agrarian reforms to an impoverished peasantry does not fu l l y explain Communist expansion in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung during the years 1937-1940. Extensive data collected in the years just prior to the establishment of Communist governments in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung indicates that tenancy and landlord usury were not very common in these two areas, and could not have been responsible for much rural misery. This economic data should not be interpreted to mean that poverty and misery did not exist among the peasants of Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung; on the contrary, indebtedness, backward farming tech-niques, and a host of other factors such as o f f i c i a l corruption and extremely heavy taxation combined to make l i f e very d i f f i c u l t for many North Chinese peasants. But the fact that this data poses a serious challenge to the validity of two suppositions commonly accepted by agrarian revolution theorists does force the scholar to ask himself, "How many North Chinese peasants found l i f e d i f f i c u l t ? " This is a question that no study supporting the agrarian revolution theory has 22^ Buck, op. c i t . (1937, s t a t i s t i c a l volume), pp. 400-401. 25 yet answered. How widespread was peasant misery? How many Long Bows and how many Liu Lings were there in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung? There also remains the question of how effectively the muted Communist land reforms of 1937-1940 assuaged rural conditions and attracted peasant support. Were half-hearted reform efforts such as these a l l i t took to develop a popular following? The agrarian revolution theory, like the peasant nationalism theory, i s best ap-plied after 1940 and leaves something to be desired as a complete explanation of Communist expansion prior to 1940. I hope to comple-ment these two theories by taking a new look at the forces operant behind Communist p o l i t i c a l expansion in North China. Ramon Myers hints at this new look when he concludes that the majority of peasants in North China were relatively poverty-free and unoppressed except under two recurring circumstances; widespread devastation by floods, droughts, or other natural disasters; and 23 widespread devastation by c i v i l wars and bandit-like warlord armies. This second circumstance — peasant misery stemming from warlord ravages — i s central to my thesis, as we shall now see. 23. Myers, op. c i t . , pp. 210, 277-278. 26 Warlord Destruction and Peasant Alienation in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung From the origin of Republican China in 1911 until the Jap-anese invasion in 1937, rapacious Chinese warlords and their i l l -disciplined armies repeatedly subjected the peasants of North China to extreme physical terror and economic catastrophe. Military strongmen such as Yen Hsi-shan, Feng Yu-hsiang, and Wu P'ei-fu ensconced them-selves in various North China provinces and ran them as autonomous kingdoms, taxing the inhabitants heavily to support huge personal armies used to defend their power niches and compete for supreme power in China. These military taxes, together with accompanying graft, were an extreme burden on the peasantry, and warlord soldiers, seldom bet-ter disciplined than thieves, commonly raped, looted, and otherwise terrorized the peasants. Consequently, the peasants came to look upon 1 the warlord armies "as a plague of locusts," and always fled their villages with a l l their possessions at the f i r s t word of approaching troops. "No other phenomenon between 1911 and 1937", writes Ramon Myers, "caused such upheaval and misery in the countryside as that of dissident military units wandering about pillaging and \\rarring with 2 one another." T\" Olga Lang, "The Good Iron of the New Chinese. Army," Pacific Af- fairs , XII, No. 1 (March, 1939), p. 32. 2. Myers, op. c i t . , p. 277. 27 How and why did this warlord exploitation of the peasantry 3 develop? Military regionalism and warlordism can be traced back to the regional armies of Tseng Kuo-fan, L i Hung-chang, and Tso Tsung-t'ang in the second half of the nineteenth century. By the latter stages of the Ch'ing (Manchu) Dynasty the Manchu army had become utterly corrupt and useless as a military force. When the T'aiping 4 Rebellion broke out in 1850, the Manchu army was unable to quell i t , and the Manchu throne commissioned Tseng Kuo-fan — and later L i Hung-chang and Tso Tsung-t'ang — to raise a local army in the threa-tened region (south-central China) and suppress the rebellion. The Manchu throne did not give Tseng, L i , or Tso any funds to raise these armies; instead, most of their support came from taxes levied in 5 the region they operated in. Gradually, as the Ch'ing Dynasty con-tinued to decline and rebellions and foreign incursions occurred in other parts of China, these regional armies were ordered into new 3. The following discussion is largely based on a number of biograph-i c a l studies of key military figures during the warlord period, such as Gi l l i n ' s study of Yen Hsi-shan (op. c i t . ) , James E. Sheri-dan's study of Feng Yu-hsiang (Chinese Warlord: The Career of Feng Yu-haiang [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966]), and others. 4. William James Hail, Tseng Kuo-fan and the Taiping Rebellion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927),pp. 5-7 . Hail mentions Manchu garrisons surrendering walled cit i e s without resistance to the Taipings and begging for mercy, only to be slaughtered to a man (pp. 5-7). 5. Ibid., pp. 193-194, 221, 272, 285. See also Franz Michael, "Intro-duction: Regionalism in Nineteenth-Century China," in Stanley Spector, L i Hung-chang and the Iiuai Army: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Regionalism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964), p. x l ; and Wong Yin-seng, Hsieh Pin-hsien, and Shi Kai-fu, Military Requisitions and, their Effect on the Peasantry, (Shanghai: Academia Sinica Monograph, 1931), reprinted in Agrarian China: Selected Source Materials from Chinese Authors, comp. and trans, by Research Staff of the Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1938), pp. 101-109. 28 territories. Local gentry and o f f i c i a l s , accustomed to dipping their fingers into the local tax coffers, were never willing to finance these armies however badly they needed their protection; consequently, Tseng, L i , and Tso would replace existing government and financial organs and o f f i c i a l s with their own, leaving trusted lieutenants in 6 charge whenever they moved to another trouble spot. In this fashion the regional militarv leaders --- especially Tseng and L i . who worked 7 together almost hand-in~glove — came to control local government and financial institutions in most of China proper by the 1870's. The Manchu throne tried to counter the increasing power of 8 Tseng and L i by backing Tso Tsung-t'ang and his army. The competi-tion which then took place between these regional military leaders over territory they could tax to support their armies culminated de-cades later in the proliferation of provincial-based warlord armies such as those commanded in Shansi ? Shantung, and Hopei (then called Chihli) by Yen Hsi-shan, Chang Tsung-ch'ang, and Wu P !ei-fu, respec-tively. This division of China into "mutually antagonistic warlord states" prevented the warlords from acquiring outside financial sup-9 port for their armies. Consequently, the people of each of these provinces had to bear the cost of these huge, unwanted armies by them-6. Michael, loc. c i t . , p. x l ; Spector, op. c i t . , pp. 208-210, 213-217; and Hail, op. c i t . pp. 208-209, 221, 285. 7. See Michael's description of the relationship between Tseng and L i , i b i d . , p. xxi. 8. Michael describes the Manchu's tendency to play powerful interests against each other in i b i d . , pp. xxix-xxxii. 9. See, for example, Gi l l i n ' s description of Yen's financial dilemma in Shansi and his ina b i l i t y to find outside capital (op. c i t . , pp. 296-^297). 29 selves. The following data on military taxes and abuses in the Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung areas indicates this burden was frequently im-poverishing and terrifying beycnd belief. Much of the peasant poverty existing in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung prior to Communist expansion into these areas was undoubtedly caused by astonishingly high warlord military taxes. How high were these taxes? An Academia Sinica study of military taxation's effect upon the peasantry,indicates that military requisitions during the heyday of L i Hung-chang and Tso Tsung-t'ang were not even in the same league with the warlord military taxes of the late 1920's and early 1930's. For example, the total amount of taxes — military and c i v i -lian — collected in Sing d i s t r i c t , Shansi province in 1879 was equi-valent to 150 catties of millet. But in the five months from November, 1929, to March, 1930, Sing di s t r i c t ' s military taxes alone amounted to 10 I, 072 catties of millet. Military requisitions in nineteenth-century China were usually based on the land tax. This remained true in twentieth-century China, but on an outrageously high scale. The military requisitions levied in four districts of southern Shansi, when Yen Hsi-shan and Feng Yu-hsiang wintered portions of their armies there for five months in 1930-1931, were 2,216 per cent of the main 11 land tax usually paid in those four d i s t r i c t s . Absolutely no fighting or mobilization took place at this time, yet those four districts had to furnish an average $670,000 apiece — twenty-two times the total value of the land tax — just for the ordinary upkeep of 10. Wong Yin-seng, loc. c i t . , p. 104. II. Ibid., p. 105. The term "main land tax" means that the land tax without the surtax is taken as the base. 30 p o r t i o n s of two armies . Dur ing t h i s same y e a r , Yen H s i - s h a n began c o l l e c t i n g m i l i t a r y taxes three years i n advance i n S h a n s i , and i m -12 p r i s o n i n g anyone who cou ld not a f f o r d to pay. But i f Yen ' s m i l i t a r y taxes were stupendously h i g h when h i s army was e n g a r r i s o n e d , they were even worse when h i s army was a f i e l d doing b a t t l e . Yen f inanced h i s army's November, 1927, to May, 1928, campaign across n o r t h e r n S h a n s i , southern Chahar, and n o r t h e r n Hopei by l e v y i n g m i l i t a r y r e q u i s i t i o n s worth $29,632,000 — a t o t a l va lue 225 times as h i g h as the main l a n d 13 tax — i n 15 n o r t h Shans i d i s t r i c t s . The people of Kwaihs i en d i s -t r i c t i n n o r t h Shans i had complained of a m i l i t a r y tax burden of " s ev-e r a l thousand d o l l a r s " i n m i l i t a r y taxes i n 1922, ye t i n 1927 had to r a i s e $29,632,000 a long w i t h four teen s i s t e r d i s t r i c t s i n j u s t f i v e months. The passage of two y e a r s ' time found the people of Kwaihs ien s t i l l s t a g g e r i n g under the burden of Yen ' s m i l i t a r y r e q u i s i t i o n s — i n 1929, Kwaihs i en p a i d $152,804 i n m i l i t a r y taxes d u r i n g the month o f 14 December a l o n e . U l t i m a t e l y , Yen H s i - s h a n ' s e x o r b i t a n t m i l i t a r y t a x -a t i o n undermined h i s m i l i t a r y s t r e n g t h , f o r the Nor th China H e r a l d r epor t s that the Communist i n v a s i o n of Shans i i n 1936 owed much of i t s m i l i t a r y success to the popular support i t r e c e i v e d from Shans i 15 peasants angered by Yen ' s heavy taxes . 12. G i l l i n , op. c i t , , p. 115. 13. Wong Y i n - s e n g , l o c . c i t o , p . 105. N i n e t y - n i n e per cent of t h i s l e v y was c o l l e c t e d i n k i n d , one per cent i n cash. 14. Wong Y i n - s e n g , l o c . c i t . , p . 104. 15. " S h a n s i M i s s i o n s Not Endangered, " Nor th China H e r a l d (Shanghai ) , A p r i l 1, 1936, p . 8; see a l so N o r t h China H e r a l d , May 6, 1936, p . 226. 31 When Chang Tsung-ch'ang — who was known as "the most not-16 oriously rapacious of a l l his kind" — became warlord of Shantung in April, 1925, land taxes immediately increased five or six times 17 to support his "undisciplined 'army* of r i f f r a f f and bandits." Several special taxes were also levied, including a "rich harvest tax" whenever crops were slightly better than usual. Japanese Army sources report that during the 1925-1927 fighting between the Chihli and Manchur-ian coalitions around Tsining, approximately 213,000 head of cattle, 120,000 mules, and 440,000 donkeys were taken from the peasants in 18 the Tsining area. The Academia Sinica study paints a tragic picture of the desperate measures peasants took to prevent the requisition of their few, much-prized head of livestock: Almost any kind of animal suitable for transportation and f i e l d work is snatched away from the peasants even' though they may f i r s t try to keep them through money payments. Finally the peasants maim the animals — blinding them or ripping their mouths, or both — in the hope of being able to keep them, not for f i e l d work, of course, but for milling or meat.l-During the fighting between the Northern Coalition and the KMT in the f i r s t six months of 1928, General Sun Ch'uan-fang, who had replaced Chang Tsung-ch'ang as warlord of Shantung, taxed many of the 107 districts in the province to finance his struggle against KMT forces under warlord-turned-nationalist Feng Yu-hsinng. The minimum collected 16. Harold R. Issacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (New York; Atheneum, 1968), p. 131. See also Sheridan, op. c i t . , pp. 236, 255, and Paul M.A. Linebargor, Government in Republican China (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1938), p. 103. 17. Sheridan, op. c i t , , pp. 24,255. 18. Myers, op. c i t . , p. 277. 19. Wong Yin-seng, loc. c i t . , p. 109. 32 20 in any d i s t r i c t was $11,445, and the maximum collected was $107,879. After Sun's defeat, western Shantung spent the second half of 1928 under Feng Yu-hsiang, eastern Shantung remained under the control of organized remnants of Sun's and Chang's warlord armies, and a huge area between these two zones of control was a no-man's land f u l l of 21 roving, pillaging warlord units turned bandits. However, despite the fact that no fighting or mobilization took place in Shantung during the second half of 1928, o f f i c i a l military requisitions sky-rocketed. Whereas the index number for military taxes based on the main land tax was 81 in the f i r s t half of 1928, i t shot up to 141 in the second half of 1928. Thus, in the same districts in which m i l i -tary requisitions had ranged from $11,445 to $107,879 in the f i r s t half of 1928, requisitions in the second half ranged from $24,773 to 22 $219,833. The source does not specify whose control these dis-t r i c t s were under, but since Feng's was the only orderly administra-tion controlling more than a few d i s t r i c t s , one suspects he was res-ponsible for doubling the military requisitions in these d i s t r i c t s . Indeed, the American consul in Tsinan at this time reported that 23 Feng's taxation of western Shantung was "unbearable." Before the Communists and the unusually politically-conscious 69th KMT Army entered Shantung to fight the Japanese, a l l of the armies in the pro-20. Ibid., p. 104. 21. See the military map of Shantung in 1929 in Sheridan, op. c i t . , p. 256. The Japanese also had a piece of Shantung; they kept garrisons along the Tsinan-Tsingtao Railroad running from west to east. 22. Wong Yin-seng, loc. c i t . , p. 104. 23. See Sheridan, op. c i t . , p. 257. 33 vince habitually l i e d about the number of troops the people were supposed to support. Consequently, the warlord soldiers would have more supplies than they needed, and would "either waste them, send 24 them to their homes, s e l l them, or .just give them away." Military requisitions were unbearable in Hopei, also. For example, at the start of the Second Chih-Feng War in 1924, Chihli warlord Wu P'ei-fu requisitioned 4,000 carts, each with two donkeys 25 and a peasant driver, from several Hopei d i s t r i c t s . And in 1929, military requisitions in southern Hopei amounted to 432 per cent of 26 the main land tax, even though no fighting took place a l l year. Adding to the peasant's woes was the fact that the military tax pro-vided an excellent vehicle for Hopei bureaucrats to exploit the pea-santry. Thfe responsibility for assessing and collecting o f f i c i a l military requisitions was delegated to local gentry-officials, who created a military tax office "in every town, village or market town 27 in Hopei." These gentry-officials padded the army's requisitions and pocketed the extra revenue. If two catties of wheat were required, they collected two and a half; they raised a requisition for four carts to 16 carts; and when sixty coolies were required they requis-28 itioned another thirty for themselves. They collected requisition orders in several installments, which enabled them to tack on a small 24. Wang Yu-chuan, loc. c i t . , p. 118. 25. Sheridan, op. c i t . , p. 26, 26. Wong Yin-seng, loc. c i t . , p. 104. 27. See Norman D. Hanwell, "The Dragnet of Local Government in North China," Pacific Affairs, X, No. 1 (March, 1937), pp. 43-63. 28. Wong Yin-seng, loc. c i t , , pp. 105-106. 34 extra demand each time. They paid grain requisitions for peasants who could not meet the demands and then conspired xvith grain merchants to raise grain prices 100 per cent or more before the peasants could pay them back, pocketing the difference between fixed and market price after the process of requisition. They bribed military commanders for documents which enabled them to collect military taxes long after 29 the troops had collected theirs and gone. They made the poor bear a heavier tax burden than the rich by assessing people on the basis of the amount of land owned, and not on the basis of the productivity of the land owned. For example, in one Hopei village a farmer owning 30 8.9 mou of land was assessed $1.67 and a rich man owning 83,4 mou of land was assessed $15.60, which on the surface seems f a i r since the same percentage was taken in both cases. However, this method of assessment actually favored t h e rich because the annual income of the man who was taxed $1.67 was only $25.61 while the income of the 31 man who was taxed $15.60 was $327.95. Yet some landlords tried to avoid paying the land tax even w h e n t h e tax system w a s weighted in their favor: in another Hopei village, a landlord e v a d e d his taxes 32 by forcing 19 of his 20 tenants t o p a y f o r him. This manner of graft a n d t a x chicanery w a s n o t restricted to Hopei, but was common to Shantung, Shansi, and the rest o f North China. Ku Meng charges that a definite collusion to exploit the peasantry 29. Ibid., p. 106. 30. One mou is equal to one-sixth of an acre. 31. Wong Yin-seng, loc. c i t . , p. 108. 32. Ibid., p. 107. 33. Ibid., pp. 105-109; see also Wang Yu-chuan, loc. c i t . , p. 118. 35 34 existed between the m i l i t a r i s t s and the gentry-officials. The Aca-demia Sinica study of military taxation agrees with this charge, and notes that the peasants perceived this collusion and were very 35 angered by i t . This suggests that perhaps much of the class vio-lence that occurred during the Chinese Revolution stemmed from the peasants' identification of the gentry class with the warlords and military taxation. But this is only the o f f i c i a l side of military taxation. The Academia Sinica study concludes that the peasantry suffered most of a l l from the "direct unauthorized military requisitions" levied at 36 gunpoint by common soldiers. Most warlord soldiers were i l l -disciplined, poorly trained ruffians who became soldiers merely to earn a li v i n g . The d i f f i c u l t y lay in the fact that too many of their commanders became soldiers for the same reason and were loath to pay 37 the troops their wages; hence the troops took whatever nutrition and material comforts they desired from the peasants. Soldiers sta-34. Ku Meng, Chung-kuo Ching-chi, I , No. 4 (August, 1933), quoted in Hanwell, loc., c i t . , p. 57. Hanwell does not cite the t i t l e of Ku Meng's a r t i c l e i n his reference note to i t . 35. See Hanwell, loc. c i t . , p. 58. Hanwell quotes a section of the Academia Sinica monograph by Wong Yin-seng, et a l . , that is not included in the IPR's Agrarian China volume. Agrarian China con-tains only an extract from the original monograph, and this par-ticular claim regarding peasant anger cannot be found in i t . 36. Wong Yin-seng, loc. c i t . , p. 109. 37. Chu Teh, On the Battlefronts of the Liberated Areas (Peking: For-eign Languages Press, 1952), p. 43. This was originally a mil-itary report to the Seventh Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, A p r i l 25, 1945. See also Epstein, op. c i t . (1939), p. 254 on the subject of warlord officers withholding their troops' wages. 36 t i o n e d i n an area would f o r c e the l o c a l peasants to run so many e r -rands f o r them t h a t they had no t ime to work i n t h e i r f i e l d s ; peasant women would be kept busy mending t h e i r uniforms and prepar ing them meals . They would demand tha t the community supply them w i t h women and h e r o i n , and they would take l i v e s t o c k and g r a i n from the peasants 38 a t w i l l . A song the s o l d i e r s l i k e d to s i n g t e l l s the s t o r y o f t h e i r p a r a s i t i c r e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h the peasantry f a r more e l o q u e n t l y than any words o f my own: My p roper ty i s no th ing but a gun And these few p iece s o f wartime equipment. By these I become master o f a l l ; By these I p l a n t , I sow, I reap . I s h a l l eat meat and d r i n k wine wherever I p l e a s e . What do I c a re to whom they belong? Wherever I go, They s h a l l ask my p i t y and my f a v o r . Because the people f ea r my gun And my wartime equipment, Trembl ing they k n e e l before my fee t And o f f e r a l l they have to me. And because o f my gun they h o l d t h e i r b rea th And c a l l me S i r e ; my gun and my equipment What endless t r e a s u r e they a re .39 U n f o r t u n a t e l y , i t i s d i f f i c u l t to document the t r u e extent o f harm done to the peasants o f the Shantung and C h i n - C h ' a - C h i areas by l o o t i n g w a r l o r d s o l d i e r s . The s o l d i e r s took what they wanted on the spur o f the moment, and d i d not leave behind any r e c o r d s . B e s i d e s , l o o t i n g was o n l y one o f the t h i n g s they d i d to earn the hatred o f the peasantry — rape and m a l i c i o u s b r u t a l i t y were a l s o par t of t h e i r reper-38. Wong Y i n - s e n g , l o c . c i t . , pp. 103,109. 39 . Morton H. F r i e d , " M i l i t a r y S ta tus i n Chinese S o c i e t y , " The Amer-i c a n J o u r n a l o f S o c i o l o g y , LVII, No. 4 ( January , 1952), p . 350. 37 t o i r e . A f t e r 1930, Yen H s i - s h a n ' s s o l d i e r s i n Shans i P r o v i n c e d i s p l a y e d marked arrogance and d i s r e g a r d f o r the p u b l i c . Yen ' s troops had su f -fered such l o s s e s i n the c i v i l wars tha t he had to b e g i n u s i n g b a n d i t s and p o o r l y - t r a i n e d m i l i t i a i n h i s once f a i r l y wel l -behaved army. Un-f o r t u n a t e l y , Yen had a l r e a d y m i l k e d the Shans i peasants so dry o f r e -sources tha t he had n o t h i n g l e f t to pay these t roops w i t h ; consequent ly , the t roops fed themselves by l o o t i n g the people o f S h a n s i , who were 40 a l r e a d y reduced by famine to e a t i n g grass and bark'. A s h a t t e r i n g defeat a t the hands o f Chiang K a i - s h e k ' s army t h a t same year lowered the morale and d i s c i p l i n e o f Yen ' s t roops s t i l l f u r t h e r . They were so detes ted by the p u b l i c tha t Yen ' s r e c r u i t i n g o f f i c e r s had to o b t a i n r e c r u i t s through subter fuge , such as c o n s c r i p t i n g peasants whom d i s -t r i c t m a g i s t r a t e s had l u r e d i n t o the c i t i e s "by promis ing to stage 41 f ree t h e a t r i c a l per formances . " Yen was very d i s t u r b e d by m i l i t a r y - c i v i l i a n tens ions and repea ted ly c h a s t i s e d h i s o f f i c e r s and troops about the need f o r good r e l a t i o n s w i t h the people . He t r i e d to shame h i s t roops i n t o b e t t e r behav iour by t e l l i n g them how Japanese o f f i c e r s reproached t h e i r s o l -d i e r s f o r p u b l i c misconduct by c i t i n g China as an example o f what happens to a country when the army does not get a long w i t h the people . He ordered h i s o f f i c e r s to "preoccupy themselves" w i t h improving the c h a r a c t e r o f t h e i r t r o o p s , and composed the f o l l o w i n g song f o r h i s men to l e a r n : 40 . G i l l i n , op. c i t . , pp. 115-116, 244. 4 1 . I b i d . , p . 244. 38 Good s o l d i e r s cooperate w i t h the people . Then, because they have the h e l p of the masses they tr iumph e a s i l y . Do not behave p r o p e r l y o n l y when your o f f i c e r s a re near . A c q u i r e the s p i r i t o f s e l f - d i s c i p l i n e . But Yen ' s campaign to reform h i s b a n d i t - t r o o p e r s e v i d e n t l y d i d not meet w i t h l a s t i n g success , f o r i n 1937 they e x t e n s i v e l y abused Shans i peasants w h i l e r e t r e a t i n g before the Japanese i n v a s i o n . Donald G i l l i n w r i t e s t h a t Yen ' s t roops robbed and raped so much w h i l e f l e e i n g south to T ' a i y u a n and thereabouts tha t the peasants feared them more than 43 they d i d the Japanese. I s r a e l E p s t e i n r e p o r t s t h a t " t h e Shans i peasantry evacuated t h e i r v i l l a g e s a t the approach o f t h e i r own troops 44 j u s t as they d i d when they heard the Japanese were coming . " James Bertram wi tnes sed no th ing but w h o l l y deser ted v i l l a g e s i n the T h i r d (Shansi ) B r i g a d e ' s path o f r e t r e a t south from T ' a i y u a n . The pea-s a n t s , who had had prev ious exper ience w i t h the passage o f Shansi t r o o p s , had taken e v e r y t h i n g they owned and d i sappeared . ( Indeed, as we saw e a r l i e r , some Nor th Shans i peasants refused to a i d and even a t t acked Shans i p r o v i n c i a l t r o o p s . ) By c o n t r a s t , the Communist E i g h t h Route Army t roops w i t h whom Bertram was moving n o r t h to the f r o n t had o n l y to shout t h e i r i d e n t i t y - - " T i Pa l u c h u n i " [E ighth Route Army] - -45 to r e c e i v e warm welcomes and w i l l i n g h o s p i t a l i t y . I n H o p e i , w a r l o r d f i g h t i n g between 1925 and 1927 reduced r a i l t r a f f i c a long the T ien t s in -Pukow R a i l r o a d by as much as 25 per 42 . See i b i d . , pp. 245,247. 43 . I b i d . , pp. 260-264. 44. E p s t e i n , op. c i t . (1939) , p . 290. 45 . James Bertram, Unconquered: J o u r n a l o f a Y e a r ' s Adventures among the F i g h t i n g Peasants o f Nor th China (New York : John Day C o . , 1939), pp, 190-193. 39 cent, slowed the shipment of rural raw materials to the c i t i e s , and forced industrial cutbacks that put many part-time wage laborers in 46 surrounding rural areas out of work. In 1936, a Japanese army of-f i c i a l referred to Sung Cheh-yuan, who was then the warlord of Hopei, as a crude, m i l i t a r i s t i c "bumpkin" whose troops (the now famous 29th 47 KMT Army) were rowdy and not well-disciplined " l i k e other troops," and i n 1937 a Japanese soldier riding a train through Hopei observed: "In every station, I saw some Chinese come to welcome our train with Japanese flags. The f i r s t time I saw this I thought how oppressed they must have been by the Chinese warlords." 4 8 But the problem of military banditry and rowdyism was worst i n Shantung, where i t continued unabated for years. During the early 49 1920's, for example, Chang- Tsung-ch'ang's warlord troops often levied "unofficial requisitions" in Shantung's En d i s t r i c t and caused "great loss of livestock and farm capital" to the inhabitants. This foraging reached i t s peak in 1926 and 1927, when the peasants of En d i s t r i c t were hit so hard by warlord troops raiding the villages for food and carts that they decided to organize "Red Spear Societies" for self-50 defense. Several villages in Lich'eng d i s t r i c t near Tsinan banded 51 together i n 1928 for similar reasons. In 1930, the Japanese South Manchurian Railway Company estimated that Shantung contained 192,000 warlord troops stationed in 21 locales, 290,000 ex-warlord troops 46. Myers, op. c i t . , p. 277. 47. Freyn, op. c i t . , p. 109. 48. Bertram, op. c i t . , p. 183. 49. Myers refers to Chang Tsung-ch'ang as "Chang Tso-chang" (op.cit.,p.118). 50. Ibid., pp. 118-119. 51. Ibid., p. 101. 40 w i t h o u t formal l e a d e r s h i p o r attachment to any m i l i t a r y o r g a n i z a t i o n 52 i n 54 l o c a l e s , and almost 20,000 b a n d i t s s c a t t e r e d over 46 d i s t r i c t s . A l l 502,000 o f them l i v e d on the sweat o f the people o f Shantung p r o -v i n c e , demanding " [ b r e a d ] , o i l , s a l t , vege tab le s , meat, u t e n s i l s , 53 d i s h e s , a n y t h i n g they cou ld l a y t h e i r hands o n . " Even the Shantung gent ry had t h e i r own armed f o r c e s , o s t e n s i b l y r a i s e d i n the mid-19301s to r e s i s t the Japanese but a c t u a l l y used to serve the gentry whenever t h e i r i n t e r e s t s occas ioned the use o f f o r c e . However, when Han F u -c h u , Shantung's l a t e s t w a r l o r d , evacuated the p r o v i n c e i n 1937 " w i t h -out f i r i n g a s i n g l e shot" i n i t s defense , the gentry and t h e i r armed forces f l e d a l s o . Together these armed b u l l i e s and Han F u - c h u 1 s " c r a c k t r o o p s " l o o t e d , raped, and burned a path o f r e t r e a t southward 54 before the i n v a d i n g Japanese. I n t e r e s t i n g l y enough, the peasants of Shantung d i d not reac t to the coming o f the Japanese i n a s i m i l a r f a s h i o n . They had been f l e e i n g Shantung and i t s myriad w a r l o r d bands f o r y e a r s , but when the Japanese invaded Shantung, the peasants remained. M i l l i o n s of peasants from Shantung, Hope i , and o ther pa r t s of Nor th China migrated 55 permanently to Manchuria d u r i n g the 1920's and e a r l y 1930's. There 52. Ib id . , p . 278. 53.Wang Yu-chuan, l o c . c i t . , p. 113. 54. Ibid . , pp. 89-91. Han Fu-chu was subsequently c o u r t - m a r t i a l l e d by the c e n t r a l government and shot . Besides d e s e r t i o n , Han was found g u i l t y o f u s i n g f o r c e to c o l l e c t " e x t o r t i o n a t e t a x e s , " m i s a p p r o p r i a t -i n g p u b l i c funds f o r h i s own use , imposing the s a l e o f opium upon the people of Shantung, and i l l e g a l l y c o n f i s c a t i n g weapons from the people ( E p s t e i n , op. c i t . , [1939], pp. 139-140.) 55.See Hao P ' u n - s u i , "The V i l l a g e s i n Cheng-nan i n the D i s t r i c t o f Yue-cheng , " M i n C h i e n , I I I , No. 19 (February 10, 1937), r e p r i n t e d i n A g r a r i a n C h i n a : Se l ec ted Source M a t e r i a l s from Chinese A u t h o r s , t r a n s , and comp. by Research S t a f f o f the S e c r e t a r i a t , I n s t i t u t e o f P a c i f i c R e l a t i o n s (Shanghai : K e l l y & Wal sh , 1938), pp . 246-250. See a l s o Hu N a i - t s i u , "The Problem o f the Peasant Exodus i n C h i n a , " Educat ion and the Mass. V I I I , No, 3 (November 28, 1936), a l s o r e p r i n t e d i n A g r a r i a n C h i n a , pp. 254-257. 41 were many reasons f o r t h i s exodus, but among the most prominent were the savage d e s t r u c t i v e n e s s of the many c i v i l wars and the heavy b u r -56 den o f m i l i t a r y t axe s . As one x^r i te r observes : "Peasants cou ld cope w i t h poor harves t s and f loods by f l e e -i n g w i t h t h e i r be longings to o t h e r a rea s , w a i t i n g u n t i l the d i s a s t e r passed, and then r e t u r n . But the ravages o f these troops was something e l s e . I t u s u a l l y meant both l o s s o f p roper ty and l i f e , and so one o f the l a r g e s t i n t e r n a l m i g r a -t i o n s o f t h i s century took p l ace d u r i n g the 1920 ' s . "^^ I n 1923 a lone almost 340,000 North China peasants migrated to Manchuria through Nor th China p o r t s ; by 1927, the number o f emigrants had c l imbed 58 t o over one m i l l i o n a y e a r . I n 1935 i t was repor ted t h a t more than 50 per cent o f a l l f a m i l i e s n a t i v e to southern Shantung had e i t h e r 59 migra ted o r had had some member m i g r a t e . But when the Japanese entered Shantung, the peasants d i d not f l e e l i k e the w a r l o r d t roops and the r i c h g e n t r y . I n s t e a d , t h e i r f i r s t r e a c t i o n was one o f r e l i e f , f o r a l though they feared and d i s l i k e d the Japanese (who had mainta ined g a r r i s o n s i n Shantung f o r the past 20 y e a r s ) , they had " b i t t e r l y hated Han Fu-chu ' s regime, under w h i c h , f o r them, hunger, b e a t i n g , f l o g g i n g , b l a c k m a i l i n g , and imprisonment were the order o f the d a y . " They f e l t 60 as i f " a b i g stone had suddenly been removed from t h e i r s h o u l d e r s . " I t i s now q u i t e c l e a r that the Chinese m i l i t a r y e s t a b l i s h -ment o f the 1920's and 1930's was an unmi t iga ted burden on the pea-sants o f C h i n - C h ' a - C h i and Shantung. War lord armies d i d i n c a l c u l a b l e economic and s o c i a l harm to the people . The authors o f the Academia 56. Hu N a i - t s i u , l o c . c i t . , p . 256. 57. Myers , op. c i t . , p . 278. 58 . I b i d . , p . 278. 59. Hu N a i - t s i u , l o c . c i t . , p . 255. 60 . Wang Yu-chuan, l o c . c i t . , p . 9 1 . 42 Sinica study assert that military requisitions of animals, food, and implements have had drastic effects upon China's agrarian economy and "have no doubt been responsible for turning f e r t i l e areas into 61 barren famine regions." This conclusion is strongly supported by the American Red Cross Commission to China's o f f i c i a l report on the famine of 1928-1929. This report unequivocally blamed the warlords and their armies for the terrible famine which struck the provinces of Kansu, Shensi, Shansi, Chahar, Hopei, Shantung, Hupeh, and Hunan: "...the destitution which prevails in the famine areas is the cumulative result of the chronic conditions of dis-order, the crushing exactions of the warlords, the depre-dations of bandits, the enforced payment of confiscatory taxation, and...the crippling and consequent in a b i l i t y of the railroads to function...-- to these was added a severe drought which brought the whole to a tragic climax...." "This commission has heard no expression of doubt that enough food existed in China to have prevented starvation in 1928 and 1929....The fact i s that the operations of contending ri v a l generals with their independent moving armies, said to have numbered more than 2,000,000 men, swept the normal stocks of food from many provinces and destroyed or paralyzed the only f a c i l i t i e s for bringing in food from those areas where food is abundant."^2 In the eyas of many Chinese, the Kuomintang government and s armies which "succeeded" warlord rule i n the late 1920's behaved no better. Ch'ien Tuan-sheng accuses the KMT of never having spent less than 50 per cent of i t s annual budget for military expenses, to the 63 detriment of more useful government services. Furthermore, the KMT's 61. Wong Yin-seng, loc. c i t . , p. 109* Paul Linebarger (op. c i t . , p. 118) agrees that "militarism had a direct effect on the deterior-ation of the land economy." 62. "American Red Cross Report on Famine in China," North China Herald, October 26, 1929, pp. 151-152. 63. Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, "The Role of the Military in Chinese Govern-ment," Pacific Affairs, XXI, No. 3 (September, 1948), pp. 250-251. 43 own troops in North China behaved no better than warlord troops; i n -deed, most of the KMT armies in North China were former warlord armies that had defected to the KMT when they realized they could not defeat 64 i t . Inevitably, the KMT Army i t s e l f began to embody various warlord qualities. For example, in 1933 General Sun's F i f t h KMT Column in Shantung recruited brigands for guerrilla warfare against the Japan-ese, but these new KMT elements actually fought with the peasant Red Spear Societies in Taian d i s t r i c t and Laiwu d i s t r i c t more than they 65 fought the invaders. The North Chinese peasantry's reaction to this development was a natural one. They no longer trusted anyone wearing a military uniform: warlord soldiers were generally brutes. KMT soldiers were generally ex-warlord soldiers but Usually not ex-brutes, and the newly 66 arrived Japanese soldiers were not above robbing peasants, either. Under these circumstances, the peasants of Shantung and Chin-Ch'a-Chi were usually quite impressed when soldiers trained to practice the virtues of t h r i f t , morality, respect, and compassion f i r s t en-tered their l o c a l i t i e s . These soldiers x^ere members of the Communist 6 4 . Ibid., p. 2 4 8 . Han Fu-chu's army i n Shantung, Yen Hsi-shan's army in Shansi, and Feng Yu-hsiang's army i n Kansu and Shensi are some of the more important warlord armies that became nomi-nally KMT forces after the Northern Expedition i n 1 9 2 7 . 6 5 . Wang Yu-chuan, loc. c i t . , p. 1 0 2 . See Mao Tse-tung's comments on the 'warlord style of work' prevalent i n the KMT army in "Let Us Get Organized" (November 2 9 , 1 9 4 3 ) , Economic and Financial Problems during the Anti-Japanese War and Other Articles (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1 9 5 5 ) , pp. 3 5 - 3 6 . 6 6 . See Epstein, op. c i t . ( 1 9 3 9 ) , pp. 2 6 8 - 2 7 0 . The diary of a Japanese soldier published in Bertram (op, c i t . , pp. 1 7 9 , 1 8 2 , 1 8 4 ) i n d i -cates that Japanese troops sometimes raided peasant orchards and chicken yards. 44 E i g h t h Route Army, and t h e i r break w i t h the w a r l o r d t r a d i t i o n was 67 ev ident from the o u t s e t . From the very moment these Communist s o l d i e r s came i n t o contac t w i t h the people , they began genera t ing s i g n i f i c a n t amounts o f normative power tha t compelled peasant i d e n -t i f i c a t i o n w i t h the Communist army, and concurrent acceptance o f Communist p o l i t i c a l a u t h o r i t y . 1 t u r n now to a d i s c u s s i o n o f the Communist m i l i t a r y ' s exemplary behaviour toward the peasants and the r o l e t h i s behaviour played i n the s u c c e s s f u l spread o f Communist p o l i t i c a l a u t h o r i t y d u r i n g the years 1937-1939. 67. L i n e b a r g e r , op. c i t . , p . 107; see a l s o Har ley F . MacNair , China i n R e v o l u t i o n : An A n a l y s i s o f P o l i t i c s and M i l i t a r i s m Under the Repub l i c (Chicago : U n i v e r s i t y o f Chicago , 1931), pp. 192-193. 45 Communist M i l i t a r y Behaviour i n C h i n - C h ' a - C h i and Shantung To the Chinese Communists, the peasants o f China were a t once both the means to and the b e n e f i c i a r i e s o f r e v o l u t i o n a r y succes s . Because o f the s t rong Japanese m i l i t a r y presence i n S h a n s i , Chahar, H o p e i , and Shantung, Communist p o l i t i c a l expansion i n these prov ince s d u r i n g the years 1937-1939 r e q u i r e d m i l i t a r y s t r e n g t h above a l l e l s e . But the Communist m i l i t a r y forces were i n f e r i o r to the Japanese army both i n manpower and f i r e p o w e r ; consequent ly , the Communists were fo rced to employ g u e r r i l l a war t a c t i c s which c o u l d succeed o n l y i f the people were w i l l i n g to g i v e them — and w i t h h o l d from the Japan-1 ese — i n f o r m a t i o n , s u p p l i e s , r e c r u i t s , and o ther forms o f a s s i s t a n c e . To paraphrase Chu Teh, the communists had to depend on the Chinese masses to s h i e l d t h e i r s m a l l , poor ly-equipped fo rce s from the Japan-2 ese as w a l l s s h i e l d a c i t y from an a t t a c k e r . The d i f f i c u l t y i n t h i s s t r a t e g y l a y i n c o n v i n c i n g the w a r l o r d -weary Nor th China peasants , who hated and d i s t r u s t e d anyone i n m i l i t a r y uniforms and p r e f e r r e d to remain a l o o f from wars , to g i v e the Communist 3 s o l d i e r s t h e i r a s s i s t a n c e and p r o t e c t i o n . To overcome t h i s peasant d i s t r u s t o f a l l t h i n g s m i l i t a r y , the Communist E i g h t h Route Army had 1. Davi s B. Bobrow, "The P o l i t i c a l and Economic Role of the M i l i t a r y i n the Chinese Communist Movement, 1927-1959" (unpubl i shed P h . D . d i s s e r t a t i o n , Massachusetts I n s t i t u t e o f Technology, 1962), p . 329. 2 . Wang Teh, "Chu Teh on the Present S i t u a t i o n i n North C h i n a , " World News and V i e w s . X I X , No. 29 (May 27, 1939), p . 635, c i t e d i n i b i d . , p . 329. 3 . Lawrence K. Ros inger , C h i n a ' s C r i s i s (New Y o r k : A l f r e d A . Knopf , 1945), pp. 144-145. See a l s o T a y l o r , op. c i t . , p . 101; and E p s t e i n , op. c i t . , (1939) , p . 270. 46 to prove i t s e l f d i f f e r e n t from the w a r l o r d a rmie s . I t c o u l d not ex-pect peasant support i f i t caused chaos and burdened the peasants as the w a r l o r d armies had done. There fore , the Communist m i l i t a r y es-tab l i shment took s p e c i a l care to adhere to the " p r i n c i p l e o f non-4 v i o l a t i o n o f the i n t e r e s t s o f the p e o p l e . " The army helped reduce the onerous burden o f m i l i t a r y t a x a t i o n i n C h i n - C h ' a - C h i and Shantung by p r a c t i s i n g s t r i c t economy, h e l p i n g the peasants w i t h t h e i r farm-work, and by r a i s i n g i t s own food and manufactur ing i t s own s u p p l i e s whenever p o s s i b l e . A progre s s ive l a n d tax system which taxed people a c c o r d i n g to t h e i r a b i l i t y to pay was i n t r o d u c e d , and c o r r u p t i o n i n l o c a l government was v i r t u a l l y erased . The Communists i n s t i t u t e d a m i l i t a r y supply system which safeguarded aga in s t m i l i t a r y - c i v i l i a n c l a shes over the r e q u i s i t i o n o f s u p p l i e s , and an ex tens ive p o l i t i c a l c o n t r o l system ensured that Communist troops d i d not l o o t , rape , o r o therwi se abuse the peasantry . F i n a l l y , the E i g h t h Route Army endea-vored to g i v e the peasants the v i t a l sense of s a f e t y , o r d e r , and s e c u r -i t y w i t h o u t which a l l the good w i l l i n the w o r l d cou ld not induce the peasants to r i s k t h e i r l i v e s by h e l p i n g and p r o t e c t i n g the Communists. The Communist E i g h t h Route Army and i t s w a r l o r d predecessors i n C h i n - C h ' a - C h i and Shantung d i f f e r e d fundamental ly i n t h e i r approach to m i l i t a r y t a x a t i o n . The Communists' m i l i t a r y s u r v i v a l depended on the good w i l l of the people ;hence , they d i d not squeeze every a v a i l a b l e t a x d o l l a r out o f the peasants . They recognized tha t " i f the peop le ' s 5 l i f e becomes h a r d , the army's l i f e w i l l become h a r d , t o o , " and they 4 . Mao Tse- tung , quoted i n Bertram, op. c i t . , p . 113. 5 . Chu Teh, op. c i t . , p . 49 . 47 taxed a c c o r d i n g l y . Many steps were taken to reduce the m i l i t a r y t a x burden on the peasants . F i r s t o f a l l , many s p e c i a l t y taxes fo rmer ly used to e x t o r t a d d i t i o n a l d o l l a r s out o f the peasants (pork t a x , p i g t a x , p i g - s l a u g h t e r t a x , p i g - s e l l i n g t a x , p i g - i n s p e c t i n g t a x , " s u r t a x 6 on pork f o r e d u c a t i o n a l expenses , " and n a r c i s s u s bulb tax) were 7 e l i m i n a t e d . Only four taxes were r e t a i n e d : the l and t a x , a tax on a l l incomes over one hundred d o l l a r s a y e a r , a duty on imports and 8 e x p o r t s , and a t a x on c i g a r e t t e s and w i n e . The main l a n d t a x , of cour se , remained the pr imary source o f m i l i t a r y revenue, but i t was assessed on a p r o g r e s s i v e s c a l e which p laced the burden o f s u p p o r t i n g the army on those who c o u l d most a f f o r d to pay. I n L i u S h a o - c h ' i ' s words , the r i c h were made to " b e a r a l i t t l e more r e s p o n s i b i l i t y to 9 a l l o w the poor to l i g h t e n t h e i r b u r d e n . " Dur ing the years 1937-1940, t h i s p r o g r e s s i v e l and tax v a r i e d somewhat i n tha t i t was based on the s i z e o f l a n d - h o l d i n g s i n some a rea s , and based on the p r o d u c t i v i t y o f 10 h o l d i n g s i n o t h e r s . F o r example, i n 1938, south Shantung peasants 6 . F o r a l i s t o f 70 s p e c i a l t y taxes b o r d e r i n g on the r i d i c u l o u s , see S h e r i d a n , op. c i t . , p . 24. 7 . L i u S h a o - c h ' i , l o c . c i t . (February 5 , 1938), p . 58. 8 . Evans F . C a r l s o n , Twin S ta r s o f China (New Y o r k : Dodd, Mead & C o . , 1940), p . 221 . S ince C a r l s o n pub l i shed both t h i s book and The C h i -nese Army (op. c i t . ) i n 1940, f u r t h e r re ferences to C a r l s o n w i l l i n -c l u d e the book t i t l e . 9 . L i u S h a o - c h ' i , l o c . c i t . (February 5 , 1938), p. 53. See a l s o T a y l o r , op. c i t . , p . 112; and I s r a e l E p s t e i n , The U n f i n i s h e d R e v o l u t i o n i n China (Bos ton : L i t t l e , Brown & C o . , 1947), p . 184. 10. See, f o r example, Lyman P . Van S l y k e , e d . , The Chinese Communist Movement: A Report of the U n i t e d S ta tes War Department, J u l y . 1945 ( S t a n f o r d : S t an ford U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1968), p . 158; and Haldore Hanson, "The People Behind the Chinese G u e r r i l l a s , " P a c i f i c A f f a i r s , X I , No. 3 (September,1938), p . 293. A f t e r 1940, however, a u n i f o r m p r o g r e s s i v e t a x system u n i f y i n g the l and t a x , income t a x , and o ther taxes was i n s t a l l e d i n the C h i n - C h ' a - C h i Border Reg ion . See "The Uni form P r o g r e s s i v e Tax System i n the Shans i-Chahar-Hopei Border R e g i o n , " i n E. S t u a r t G e l d e r , e d . , The Chinese Communists (London: V i c t o r G o l l a n c z , L t d . , 1946), pp. 210-212; and L i n d s a y , l o c . c i t . (par t I I ) , p . 121. 48 owning l e s s than t e n mou of l and were exempt from the land t a x , w h i l e those w i t h more than t e n mou were taxed p r o g r e s s i v e l y h i g h e r p r o p o r -11 t i o n a t e to t h e i r h o l d i n g s . But i n an unnamed C h i n - C h ' a - C h i d i s t r i c t v i s i t e d by George T a y l o r , the l a n d tax i n 1937-1938 was based on p r o -d u c t i v i t y i n s t e a d o f p r o p e r t y . Under t h i s system, peasants h a r v e s t i n g l e s s than t e n t a n (1,350 l b . ) o f g r a i n a n n u a l l y were exempt, peasants earn ing 10 to 30 t a n p a i d f i v e per cent o f i t i n t axe s , and those 12 earn ing more were taxed p r o g r e s s i v e l y h i g h e r . The Communists f u r t h e r l i g h t e n e d the peasant ' s m i l i t a r y t a x burden by c l e a n i n g up c o r r u p t i o n and waste i n the l o c a l govern-ments which assessed and c o l l e c t e d the t a x e s . The o f f i c i a l s c o l l e c t -i n g m i l i t a r y revenues f o r the Communists were new, fewer, and mos t ly 13 i n c o r r u p t i b l e . The Communists admit ted t h a t " i t happens from time to t ime t h a t some f e l l o w s t e a l s from p u b l i c funds the e q u i v a l e n t o f a 14 few packages o f c i g a r e t t e s o r a p a i r o f shoes . " These sma l l o f f e n -ders were a l lowed to go unpunished except f o r s t rong c r i t i c i s m at ' s t r u g g l e m e e t i n g s ' , but o f f i c i a l s s t e a l i n g a n y t h i n g more than t h i s were i m p r i s o n e d , and those g u i l t y of ' squeeze ' or embezzlement o f 11 . Wang Yu-chuan, l o c . c i t . , p . 108. 12. T a y l o r , op. c i t . , p. 112. T h i s t a x system could be found w i t h a d i f f e r e n t t w i s t i n o ther Communist a rea s . I n the Taihang Mountains r e g i o n (a long the Shans i -Hopei b o r d e r ) , peasants were taxed a c c o r d -i n g to t h e i r average p r o d u c t i v i t y i n recent y e a r s , and were a l lowed to keep any earnings exceeding tha t average p r o d u c t i o n f i g u r e . See Teng H s i a o - p ' i n g , "Economic R e c o n s t r u c t i o n i n the Taihang R e g i o n , " i n G e l d e r , op. c i t . , p . 201. (Teng does not s p e c i f y whe-t h e r the peasants s t i l l had to pay a set t ax sum i f t h e i r harves t s were poor and below average. ) 13 . T a y l o r , op. c i t . , p . 112. 14. Gunther S t e i n , The Cha l lenge o f Red China (New York & London: W h i t t l e s e y House, 1945), p . 209. 49 15 more than $500.00 w e r e shot . Gunther S t e i n r e l a t e s , however, tha t the overwhelming consensus o f the " s c o r e s " o f Communists, non-Com-m u n i s t s , and f o r e i g n e r s he i n t e r v i e w e d i n the Red areas was tha t 16 c o r r u p t i o n no longer e x i s t e d t h e r e . The E i g h t h Route Army a l s o fo l lowed a p o l i c y o f s t r i c t 17 economy i n i t s use o f s u p p l i e s , i n s t a r k c o n t r a s t to i t s w a r l o r d predeces sor s , who were n o t o r i o u s f o r t h e i r conspicuous , extravagant consumption and waste o f m a t e r i a l . I n f a c t , the Communist army once had p r e t t y extravagant t a s t e s i t a e l f . Dur ing the K i a n g s i S o v i e t P e r -i o d o f 1928-1934, Red Army s o l d i e r s had r e c e i v e d f r ee houses , f ree l a n d , f r ee boat r i d e s , f ree p o s t a l s e r v i c e , f ree b u r i a l , t a x exemptions, 18 and re t i r ement pensions a t the age o f 45 . However, the years 1937-1940 saw concern f o r the s o l d i e r s 1 w e l f a r e rep laced by concern f o r the m a t e r i a l comfort o f the peasants . A 1938 v i s i t o r to the c e n t r a l Hopei s e c t o r o f the C h i n - C h ' a - C h i Border Region repor ted t h a t the i n t e r e s t s o f the peasants now came before the i n t e r e s t s o f the Communist s o l d i e r s , 19 who wore cheaper c l o t h i n g and a te poorer food than the peasants . T r a d i t i o n a l u n i t banquets were a b o l i s h e d , and s o l d i e r s and commanders a l i k e a te p o o r l y i n order to a v o i d t a x i n g more g r a i n away from the 15. See i b i d . , p . 209; C a r l s o n , o p . c i t . (Twin S ta r s o f C h i n a ) , p . 222; Teng H s i a o - p ' i n g , l o c . c i t . , p . 203; and T a y l o r , op. c i t . , p . 105. 16. I b i d . , p . 209; see a l s o L i n d s a y , l o c . c i t . ( p a r t I I ) , p . 124. 17 . L i u S h a o - c h ' i , "The Armed Forces P e r s i s t i n g i n the War o f Re-s i s t a n c e i n North C h i n a " ( J u l y 1, 1938), i n C o l l e c t e d Works o f L i u S h a o - c h ' i , Before 1944, op. c i t . , p . 77; see a l s o Bobrow, op. c i t . , p. 337. 18. Hanson, l o c . c i t . , p . 297. 19. I b i d . , p . 297; E p s t e i n , op. c i t . (1947) , pp. 183-184. 50 20 peasants. Instead of receiving the regulation two summer uniforms and one winter uniform a year, the soldiers got only one summer uni-21 form annually and one winter uniform every two years. These issues were to be patched and re-patched, and could not be replaced unless lost. When uniforms fi n a l l y were turned in, the Eighth Route Army's own uniform factories salvaged everything that could be re-used. Intact pieces of cloth, when they could be found, were re-used for padded soft shoes, and torn rags were plaited into rope soles for shoes and sandals. Cotton wadding from the padded winter uniforms was refluffed, dis-infected, and re-used. To save precious metal, uniform buttons were made of wood and insignia were made of glazed 22 pottery. Indeed, the Communists imposed limits on the size of their armed forces, and i n times of famine even reduced them to ease the 23 peasants' burden. In 1938, Anna Louise Strong reported having seen Chu Teh's staff turn down thousands of Shansi peasants x^anting to enlist because the Communists had no more money and would not ask 24 the people to bear the burden of a larger army. Similarly, the 20. Epstein, op. c i t . (1947), pp. 183-184; see also Ching Ying, "Squad Leader Chia Shih-kwei," in Saga of Resistance to Japanese Invasion (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959), pp. 149-150. 21. Epstein, op. c i t . (1947), pp. 183-184; see also Harrison Forman, Report from Red China (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1945), pp. 74-75. 22. Ibid., p. 289. 23. See Chu Teh, op. c i t . , pp. 29, 31, and (especially) 41. 24. Strong, loc. c i t . , p. 156. Later, in 1941, the Communists actu-a l l y reduced irregular forces by 20 per cent in some areas, demo-bilized at least 1,500 Eighth Route Army regulars, and ordered several units to devote their f u l l attention to s t r i c t l y produc-tion work (see Selden, op. c i t . , pp. 212-214; Stein, op. c i t . , pp. 141, 337; and Epstein, op. c i t . 1947 , p. 163). 51 Eighth Route Array actually had to restrict i t s e l f in the amount of ammunition i t used and the number of battles fought. The Eighth Route Army may have been the only army that counted (and collected for re-loading) the cartridges i t had expended during a battle, to be inclu-ded in i t s report along xjith the number of casualties and enemy dead. For example, during one battle i n which they k i l l e d 960 Japanese the Communists used only 900 cartridges, but over 2,000 cheap home-made hand grenades. On other occasions Japanese detachments were surrounded but could not be destroyed "because the Chinese could not afford the expenditure of ammunition necessary to delay the arrival of reinforce-25 ments." The Eighth Route Army also helped peasants with their farm work whenever possible, hoping thereby to both increase production and demonstrate to the people that Red soldiers were not of the old warlord-mercenary mold, but were willing to work for their keep. In 1939, after the Japanese flooded Central Hopei by breaking the dikes and levies on the Yellow River in 185 places, units of the Eighth Route Army assisted the c i v i l i a n populace in closing 105 dam openings, twelve of which were "emergency repairs," and i n reclaiming flooded crop-lands. The flood had inundated 147,495 mou of a l l u v i a l crop-lands, but with army help, 139,495 mou were restored to their original 26 state so that i n 1940 these crop-lands produced a rich harvest. 25. Lindsay, loc. c i t . , pp. 101,104. 26. Soong Shou-wen [Sung Shao-wen], "Economic Reconstruction in the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region" (A Report to the F i r s t Session of the People's P o l i t i c a l Council of Shansi-Chahar-Hopei Border Region), in Gelder, op. c i t . , p. 191. 52 Communist t roops a l s o helped peasants i n the t r i - b o r d e r area o f the C h i n - C h ' a - C h i Border Region to r e c l a i m 10,000 p r e v i o u s l y u n c u l t i v a t e d 27 acres by 1940, and helped o r g a n i z e 559 f u n c t i o n i n g i n d u s t r i a l coop-28 e r a t i v e s i n C h i n - C h ' a - C h i by the end o f 1939. S p e c i a l e f f o r t s were made to h e l p the peasants a t c r u c i a l t imes o f the y e a r , such as the 2 9 p l o w i n g , p l a n t i n g and h a r v e s t i n g seasons. I n the s p r i n g , f o r example, Communist c a v a l r y horses were used to he lp C h i n - C h ' a - C h i peasants plow t h e i r f i e l d s . The E i g h t h Route Army commander i n the C h i n - C h ' a -C h i Border Region, N i e h Jung-chen, dismounted a c a v a l r y regiment o f one thousand men to a l l o w the peasants to use the horses f o r p l o w i n g , and h i g h - r a n k i n g commanders a l s o turned t h e i r mounts over to be used i n the f i e l d s . I n f a c t , commander-in-chief Chu Teh's f a v o r i t e mount 30 was s a i d to have been r u i n e d by f i e l d w o r k . Communist i n f a n t r y men, t h e i r weapons s tacked nearby and t h e i r s e n t r y posts manned by o l d men 31 and c h i l d r e n , helped the peasants sow t h e i r c r o p s . A l l o f t h i s l a b o r h e l p and concern would coneto no good, however, i f the peasants were not p ro tec ted aga ins t Japanese r a i d s a t h a r v e s t - t i m e . The Japanese o f t e n timed major i n v a s i o n s to c o i n c i d e w i t h the harves t i n the hopes o f f o r c i n g the Communist t roops to have 27. C a r l s o n , op. c i t . (Twin S t a r s of C h i n a ) , p . 218. Communist t roops i n a l l Nor th China were under orders to serve as " shock t roops " and l e a d the peasants i n r e c l a i m i n g and c u l t i v a t i n g h i t h e r t o u n -p r o d u c t i v e l and d u r i n g t h e i r spare t ime . See S t e i n , op. c i t . , p. 339; and E p s t e i n , op. c i t . (1947) , p. 181. 28 . Edgar Snow, The B a t t l e f o r A s i a (New York and C l e v e l a n d : World P u b l i s h i n g C o . , 1941), p. 338. 29 . C a r l s o n , op. c i t . (Twin S tar s o f C h i n a ) , p . 222; Van S l y k e , op. c i t . p . 198. 30 . E p s t e i n , op. c i t . (1947) , pp. 162-163, 258-259. See a l s o Hanson, l o c . c i t . , p . 294; and Van S l y k e , op. c i t . , pp. 51-52. 3 1 . S t r o n g , l o c . c i t . , p. 163. 53 to requisition food from the peasants when they were poor. The Eighth Route Army dealt with this threat by organizing peasant Labor Exchange Groups which reduced the time needed to bring in the crops from six weeks to a fortnight, and by deploying i t s troops to protect the pea-sants from Japanese attack. At times the Eighth Route Army i t s e l f mounted harvest-time offensives into Japanese-occupied territory to pre-empt apparent Japanese invasions of Communist areas. In sectors which the Japanese showed no signs of attacking, the Communist troops joined the peasants in the fields to get the harvest in faster, and 32 then moved to sectors where they were more needed. Ultimately, Com-munist precautions such as these earned the peasants' f u l l support and trust. They were convinced that i t was possible to support the Communists and s t i l l l i v e normal, productive lives without fear of Japanese reprisals — that they could " l i v e better, more ful l y , and 33 more freely by fighting than they could by submission." The Eighth Route Army kept the Japanese out of their villages for the most part, and when the Japanese did succeed in penetrating Communist defenses, the civilians and their possessions were evacuated and hidden with time to spare. Peasants who lost their food and belongings were fed by the troops until government r e l i e f organizations provided the eva-cuees with enough food to last until the next harvest. After the 1938 Japanese spring offensive, more than 40,000 central Hopei peasants were cared for i n this fashion; in fact, an American missionary sta-tioned i n this region told a v i s i t i n g journalist that "the guerrillas 32l Epstein, op. c i t . (1947), pp. 279-230. 33. Epstein, "Journey in the North," in Gelder, op. c i t . , p. 69. 54 in her area had organized more philanthropic enterprises in the past 34 year than the Christian missions had developed in the past decade. The f i n a l Communist military policy designed to reduce the peasant's military tax burden was the Eighth Route Army's "sel f -production" campaign, during which the soldiers were to produce a substantial quantity of their own food, clothing, and military sup-plies. L i t t l e information i s available about military-production work in the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region and Shantung Guerrilla Area during the years 1937-1940, because this policy was not instituted 35 on a wide scale until 1942. There is some evidence, however, that various army units in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung were involved in ex-perimental "self-production" campaigns in 1938 and 1939. General Yeh Chien-ying states that in 1939, Communist troops in Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung were producing their own "ammunition, arms, and daily essentials," and were paying "much attention" to the improvement of 36 people's living conditions. Unfortunately, Yen does not state any-thing more specific than this; however, other sources do give con-crete examples. Wang Yu-chuan reports that in 1938, Communist guer-r i l l a s formed production regiments of 500 men each in most districts 34. Hanson, loc. c i t . , pp. 294-295. 35. See Forman, op. c i t . , p. 74. The primary experiment in military production at this time was conducted in the Nanniwan d i s t r i c t of the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region, where Wang Chen's tough 359th Brigade achieved astounding success. Forman offers much data on the Nanniwan experiment, as do Hsieh Kuang-chih, "Nanniwan Re-clamation," in Saga of Resistance to Japanese Invasion, op. c i t . , pp. 157-167; and Hsu Yung-ying's A Survey of the Shensi-Kansu- Ninghsia Border Region, part II (New York: International Secre-tariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1945). 36. Yeh Chien-ying, "Report on the General Military Situation of the Chinese Communist Party in the War of Resistance," in Gelder, op. c i t . , p. 75. 55 of the Shantung G u e r r i l l a Area. These "Independent Regiments" were given few f i g h t i n g tasks, t h e i r main function being a g r i c u l t u r a l pro-37 11 duction. Farther north, General Lu Cheng-tsaos forces were taught 38" to spin, weave, and sew t h e i r own clothing i n t h e i r spare time. The army's cost to the peasants of Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shan-tung began to drop as these "self-production'' campaigns escalated a f t e r 1940. The Communists were unable to buy weapons from any out-side sources, so the peasant's onlv burden was the necessity of feed-39 ing and clothing the army. Consequently, when large brigade-size units began manufacturing almost a l l t h e i r d a i l y n e c e s s i t i e s and achieving 50-75 per cent s e l f - s u f f i c i e n c y i n meat, vegetables, wheat, and m i l l e t , m i l i t a r y taxation eased considerably. By 1943, for ex-ample, Communist troops i n Shantung were supplying t h e i r own needs to the value of (Chinese) $56,156,000, or about $1,000 for each regular s o l d i e r . This made i t possible to l i g h t e n the tax load of the people of the Shantung G u e r r i l l a Area, i n seme cases by as much as nineteen 40 d o l l a r s per inhabitant. In the c e n t r a l Hopei sector of Chin-Ch'a-Chi, every s o l d i e r was required to c u l t i v a t e one mou of land annually, and i n other Communist-controlled North China regions, army detachments were expected to produce enough food to feed themselves two months 41 out of the year. 37. Wang Yu-chuan, l o c . c i t . , p. 108. 38. See Forman, op. c i t . , p. 207. 39. Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China (New York: Grove Press, 1961), p. 284. 40. Epstein, op. c i t . (1947), p. 279. 41. I b i d . , pp. 278-279. Chu Teh estimated that army units could, i n the absence of f i g h t i n g , become wholly s e l f - s u f f i c i e n t i n three years, while units i n front areas could possibly achieve as much as 50 per cent s e l f - s u f f i c i e n c y (op. c i t . , p. 50). 56 If anything, however, the peasants of North China had de-tested the warlord armies more for the destructive, arrogant behaviour of their troops than for economic reasons, and the Eighth Route Army strove mightily to avoid similar alienation by making i t s soldiers conform to s t r i c t rules of public behaviour. These rules were en-forced primarily by cleans of indoctrination and p o l i t i c a l control rather than by punishments, for the Communists were more interested in preventing crimes than in punishing them. The main structure of the Eighth Route Army's behaviour code consisted of two sets of simple rules formulated by Mao Tse-tung — the "Three Main Rules of Disci-pline" and the Eight Points for Attention": The Three Main Rules of Discipline 1. Obey orders in a l l your actions. 2. Do not take a single needle or piece of thread from the masses. 3. Turn in everything captured. The Eight Points for Attention 1. Speak politely. 2. Pay f a i r l y for what you buy. 3. Return everything you borrow. 4. Pay for anything you damage. 5. Do not hit or swear at people, 6. Do not damage crops. 7. Do not take liberties with women. 8. Do not i l l - t r e a t captives.^2 42. Mao Tse-tung, "On the Reissue of the Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention — Instruction of the General Head-quarters of the Chinese People's Liberation Army" (October 10. 1947), Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung (Peking s Foreign Languages Press, j.9ob) , p. 343. These rules differ in several instances from those actually espoused during the Anti-Japanese War. According to Evans Carlson (op. c i t . [The Chinese Army], pp. 36-37), the Communists' original rules were adapted to the circumstances of the Anti-Japanese War, and read as follows, in 1939: 1) Execute the Anti-Japanese patri-otic principles; 2) Execute the instructions of higher leaders; 3) Do not take the smallest thing from the people; — 1) Ask permission before entering a house; Before leaving thank the occupants for their courtesy, and ask them i f they are satisfied with the condition of the house; 2) Keep the house clean; 3) Speak kindly to the people; Continued . . . . 57 These rules were taught to the soldiers as the "Three-point-eight Working-style" every Eighth Route Army soldier must live by. They were obviously designed to earn peasant appreciation by preventing the looting, arrogance, b i l l e t i n g by force, wanton destruction, and rape so characteristic of warlord troops. To quote Israel Epstein, they "were a veritable b i l l of rights for the people who had previously 43 had no rights at a l l where soldiers were concerned." Closer exam-ination of these rules shows how well the people's interests were respected by the Eighth Route Army. As several of the rules concerning taking or borrowing things from the people indicate, the Communists forbade their troops to requisition supplies on their own authority from the peasants as the warlord troops had formerly done. On February 5, 1938, Liu Shao-ch'i ordered that "food and fodder for the anti-Japanese forces should be obtained through existing local governments; armed units 44 should not assess them directly from the people." A convenient military supply system designed to prevent milit a r y - c i v i l i a n tensions was established at the local level throughout Chin-Ch'a-Chi, Shantung, and other Communist-governed zones in North China. Under this system, the army simply bought supplies ahead of time and stockpiled them for the troops to use whenever they were in the area: "Good relations between army and people are protected by an excellent supply system, based on the principle that the army 42. (Continued. . . .) 4) Pay for everything that you use, at the mar-ket price; 5) Return a l l borrowed articles; 6 ) Pay for a l l a r t i -cles which the army has broken or destroyed; 7) Do not commit a nuisance (dig latrines); 8) Do not k i l l or rob the captives (enemy prisoners). 43. Epstein, op. c i t . (1939), p. 217. 44. Liu Shao-ch'i, loc. c i t . (February 5, 1938), p. 58. 58 never gets supplies directly from the people. The Govern-ment buys grain and s t o r e s i t on the s p o t ; the supply officer of any army unit in the d i s t r i c t applies to the c i v i l authorities from whom he r e c e i v e s p r o v i s i o n s . Four receipts are made out: for t h e c i v i l authorities, the supply office, military headquarters, and the government. According to George Taylor, any m i l i t a r y s u p p l y o f f i c e r or c i v i l auth-ority guilty of even the slightest p e c u l a t i o n was s u b j e c t to the 46 death penalty. Even when Communist forces were operating behind enemy lines and needed supplies, they s t i l l c o u l d n o t requisition them from the people. Instead, they were supposed to seize goods from the enemy, seize goods from traitors (Japanese sympathizers and collaborating o f f i c i a l s ) , or ask for and i f necessary requisition supplies from the 47 rich; they must never ask for supplies from the poor. Even the contributions from the rich had to be solicited or assessed with care lest the peasants be inadvertently taxed and alienated: "The guerrilla units must never assess or s o l i c i t contribu-tions from the rich through the heads o f v i l l a g e s . . . contri-butions should be solicited or assessed directly from the rich households....If this is done through the medium of a village head, he w i l l naturally s o l i c i t them from the poor as well with the result that the great majority o f people w i l l harbour discontent toward the guerrilla f o r c e s ."48 Wang Yu-chuan says that the guerrillas o f the Communist Fourth Brigade in warlord-ridden Shantung won much popular support because o f their 45. Taylor, op. c i t . , p. 105. See also " A British Observer," loc. c i t . , p. 457; and Epstein, op. c i t . (1947), pp. 216-217. 46. Ibid., p. 105. It w i l l be noted that this report contradicts the word of three other sources (Stein, Carlson, and Teng Hsiao-p'ing) who say only crimes involving more than $500.00 were punished by death (see supra, p. 49). 47. Liu Shao-ch'i, "Various Questions Concerning Fundamental Policies in Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Warfare" (October 16, 1937), in Collected Works of Liu Shao-ch'i, Before 1944 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1969), pp. 39-40. 48. Ibid., pp. 39-40. 59 adherence to these r u l e s . They never took anyth ing from those who c o u l d not a f f o r d i t , they never took more than they needed frpm the r i c h , and before they moved on they d i s t r i b u t e d anyth ing l e f t over 49 among the poor . Sometimes, however, the Communist g u e r r i l l a s had no cho ice but to o b t a i n s u p p l i e s from the peasantry because a l l the r i c h people had f l e d when the Japanese came to the a rea . Whenever t h i s s i t u a t i o n o c c u r r e d , the s o l d i e r s had to propagandize ana t r y to persuade the peasants to g ive s u p p l i e s v o l u n t a r i l y . I f t h i s p l o y f a i l e d , the s o l -d i e r s cou ld then r e q u i s i t i o n what they needed, but i n r e t u r n had to pay the peasants i n currency or i n g r a i n coupons redeemable f o r the 50 f u l l va lue of what they had t aken . In f a c t . Communist troops i n Shans i were r e p o r t e d to have o f t en o a i d double the o r d i n a r y p r i c e 51 f o r any food or d r i n k they took from the poorer peasants . Troops 52 would pay a few coppers f o r the use of a cookstove f o r a few minutes , and one E i g h t h Route Array u n i t even p a i d some peasants f o r food that 53 had been s t o l e n by a group of Shans i p a r t i s a n s . The E i g h t h Route Army's t r o o p s , on the o ther hand, were s a i d to never s t e a l . One r e p o r -t e r observed that the troops w i t h whom she marched through l o n g , h o t , dusty v a l l e y s never once turned t h e i r heads as they passed melon patches and pear orchards — they cou ld not a f f o r d to buy a n y t h i n g , 49. Wang Yu-chuan, l o c . c i t . , pp. 113-119. 50. L i u Shao~ch i , l o c . c i t . ( J u l y 1, 1938), p . 76. 51. " S h a n s i Not Such a 'Model P r o v i n c e ' , " Nor th China H e r a l d , J u l y 8, 1936, p . 80. 52. Nym Wales , I n s i d e Red China (New Y o r k : Doubleday, Doran, and Company, 1939), p . 291. 53. Agnes Smedley, China F i g h t s Back: An American Woman w i t h the E i g h t h Route Army (New Y o r k : The Vanguard P r e s s , 1938), p . 138. 60 54 and they would not s t e a l . Another r e p o r t e r observed a hungry Com-munist s o l d i e r marching through a town p i c k up a s t a l e r o l l from a deser ted bread s t a n d , o n l y to q u i c k l y put i t back when the s o l d i e r behind him remarked i n t o the a i r ; "Not a needle or p i ece of thread from 55 the p e o p l e . " Another time a s o l d i e r took a handfu l of peanuts from a peasant ' s f i e l d w i t h o u t p a y i n g . That evening the u n i t ' s p o l i t i c a l i n s t r u c t o r assembled the troops and chided them: " S h a l l we s e l l our r e p u t a t i o n f o r a handfu l of p e a n u t s ? . . . ' O n e l i t t l e t h e f t of peanuts spreads r i g h t through a v i l l a g e and destroys the good name our army has earned by the d i s c i p l i n e of y e a r s . You can not h i d e anyth ing from 56 the p e o p l e . ' " The E i g h t h Route Army's respect f o r p r i v a t e p roper ty was a l s o r e f l e c t e d i n i t s b i l l e t i n g p o l i c y . The s o l d i e r s were i n s t r u c t e d to quar te r themselves i n p u b l i c b u i l d i n g s such as temples or schools whenever p o s s i b l e , and not to enter p r i v a t e homes w i t h o u t the p e r -57 m i s s i o n of the i n h a b i t a n t s . When the}? l e f t a b i l l e t i n g , they were to leave t h e i r quar ter s c l e a n , undamaged, and i n p e r f e c t o r d e r ; i f any damage was i n f l i c t e d , i t must be p a i d f o r prompt ly . For example, Shantung g u e r r i l l a u n i t s always b i l l e t e d themselves i n temples , l o c a l m i l i t a r y headquar ter s , the lodges of l o c a l s o c i e t i e s such as the Red Spears , or vacant merchant s torehouses . Dur ing t h e i r spare time they 58 cleaned the l o c a l s t r e e t s or helped the peasants i n t h e i r f i e l d s . 54. Wales , op. c i t . , p . 291. 55. S idney R i t t e n b e r g , c i t e d i n Anna Lou i se S t r o n g , The Chinese Con-quer China (Garden C i t y : Doubleday and Company, 1949) p . 199. 56. I b i d . , p . 199. 57. E p s t e i n , op. c i t . (1939), p . 217. In f a c t , the Communist troops were not even to enter the v i l l a g e s unless the v i l l a g e r s gave t h e i r p e r m i s s i o n ; 58. Wang Yu-chuan, l o c . c i t . , p . 121. 61 In Shansi, the troops rented rooms or houses with the consent of the owners, and paid for them in national currency. Then, as soon as these arrangements had been made, the soldiers swept out the rooms, cooked the evening meal, and performed other chores even though they had been marching a l l day. In the evening, the soldiers entertained the dozens of villagers who invariably came to mingle with them, smok-ing and talking. Then, in the mcming, the troops again swept out 59 the dwelling and courtyard before they l e f t . The Communists also worked very hard and very successfully at preventing sexual attacks on peasant women by their soldiers. For-eigners liv i n g in Communist areas never found prostitutes or heard of 60 sexual offenses involving Communist soldiers, and peasant women were 61 not afraid to work o!r socialize near the "Eighth Routers". Rape could not be permitted in an army that depended so heavily upon the people's good w i l l , How could the peasants be expected to continue helping the Eighth Routers and talcing them into their homes, asked a Communist o f f i c i a l , i f the soldiers repaid these kindnesses by raping 62 their wives and daughters? Consequently, the Communists sentenced a l l sexual offenders to death: "Since the regular Red Army was organized in about 1950, rape has not been a problem. Discipline on this question is 100 per cent good. In the early days in the past, how-ever, i t was necessary to court-martial such offenders, and a l l guilty soldiers were shot. 5 9 . Bertram, op. c i t . , p. 138. 60. Agnes Smedley, quoted in Carlson, op. c i t . (Twin Stars of China), p. 85. 61. Wang Yu-chuan, loc. c i t . , p. 121. 62. Strong, op. c i t . , p. 201. 63. Chu Teh, quoted in Wales, op. c i t . , pp. 39-40. 62 Undoubtedly , the use of the death p e n a l t y was p a r t l y r e s p o n s i b l e f o r the E i g h t Route Army's "100 per cent " s u c c e s s f u l campaign aga ins t sex c r i m e s ; however, much of t h i s success was a l s o due to the extreme ac-t i v i t y E i g h t h Route S o l d i e r s d a i l y underwent. S o l d i e r s t r y i n g to r e -s i s t an e x t e r n a l aggressor and at the same time conduct a r e v o l u t i o n aga ins t an i n t e r n a l oppressor are l e f t w i t h l i t t l e t i m e , energy, or even d e s i r e f o r d a l l i a n c e . When the E i g h t h Route Army's peasant-s o l d i e r s were not f i g h t i n g , marching , or p r a c t i s i n g m i l i t a r y s k i l l s , they were busy mending t h e i r own u n i f o r m s ; r a i s i n g t h e i r own food , l e a r n i n g how to r e a d , and — i n e v i t a b l y — r e c e i v i n g p o l i t i c a l t r a i n -64 i n g . The E i g h t h Route Army was e a s i l y the b u s i e s t army i n the w o r l d ; i t i s not d i f f i c u l t to understand whv f o r e i g n e r s v i s i t i n g the Communist 65 areas dec l a red i t to be the most c o n t i n e n t army i n the w o r l d . However, most of the E i g h t h Route Army's success i n p r e v e n t -i n g rape — and most of i t s success i n p r e v e n t i n g unauthor ized r e q u i s i -t i o n i n g , t h e f t , a n d other abuses of the people. •— was due to i t s p o l i -t i c a l c o n t r o l system. As s t a t e d p r e v i o u s l y , the Communists were more i n t e r e s t e d i n p r e v e n t i n g abuse of the people than i n p u n i s h i n g c u l -p r i t s . The bes t way to prevent abuse was to educate the s o l d i e r s and develop t h e i r p o l i t i c a l consc iousness . T h i s task was the r a i s o n d ' e t r e f o r the P o l i t i c a l Departments and p o l i t i c a l o f f i c e r s the Communist P a r t y i n s t a l l e d at every l e v e l of the army h i e r a r c h y , from army head-quar ter s down to the company and sometimes the p l a t o o n l e v e l . The 64. See Smedley,op. c i t . , pp. 247-248, 6 5 . See i b i d . , pp. 247-249; C a r l s o n , op. c i t . (Twin S ta r s of C h i n a ) , p . 85; Wales , op. c i t . , pp. 39-40; S t r o n g , op. c i t . , pp. 200-201. 63 company l e v e l was the b a s i c l e v e l of a l l p o l i t i c a l work i n the E i g h t h 66 Route Army, and the P o l i t i c a l Department was represented at t h i s l e v e l i n the person of a s i n g l e p o l i t i c a l o f f i c e r who a l s o happened to represent the Communist P a r t y ' s "watch-dog ! : apparatus , the p a r t y 67 committee system. The p o l i t i c a l o f f i c e r ' s d u t i e s were to i n s t r u c t the s o l d i e r s i n how to behave p r o p e r l y , and to watch them and i f necessary d i s c i -p l i n e them. He taught them the " T h r e e - p o i n t - e i g h t W o r k i n g - s t y l e , " i n -s t r u c t e d them i n rudimentary s o c i a l i s t thought , l e c t u r e d on the h i s t o r y o f the Chinese R e v o l u t i o n and the h i s t o r y of i m p e r i a l i s t aggres s ion i n C h i n a , t r a i n e d them to do mass work among the peasants , and l e d them i n the s i n g i n g of r e v o l u t i o n a r y songs and other r e c r e a t i o n a l ac-t i v i t i e s . He was to "endeavor to e l i m i n a t e a l l immoral conduct i n the company (such as d r i n k i n g , gambl ing , opium-smoking, rape , f i g h t i n g , 68 q u a r r e l i n g , t h e f t , e t c . ) . " I n Chu Teh's words , the P o l i t i c a l Depart-ment and i t s o f f i c e r s were " t h e l i f e l i n e of the army" v/hich prevented 69 i t from f a l l i n g i n t o the e v i l ways of the w a r l o r d s . Without such p o l i t i c a l i n s t r u c t i o n and l e a d e r s h i p , the s o l -d i e r s would be more a l i a b i l i t y than an asset to the Chinese Communist 66. Genera l P o l i t i c a l Department o f the E ighteenth Group Army, comp., " P o l i t i c a l Work Regu la t ions f o r the E i g h t e e n t h Group Army (E ighth Route Army; ot the Chinese N a t i o n a l R e v o l u t i o n a r y A r m y , " ( d r a r t , 1939), In Kau Ying-mao, P a u l H . C h a n c e l l o r , P h i l l i p E . G i n s b u r g , and P i e r r e M. P e r r o l l e , The P o l i t i c a l Work System of the Chinese Communist M i l i t a r y : A n a l y s i s and Documents (Prov idence : Brown U n i v e r s i t y East A s i a Language and Area Center , 1971), p . 145. 67. John G i t t i n g s , The Role of the Chinese Army (London: Oxford U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1967), p . 108. 68. Genera l P o l i t i c a l Department of the E i g h t e e n t h Group Army, l o c . c i t . , p . 149. 69.. See Agnes Smedley, The Great Read: The L i f e and Times of Chu Teh (New Y o r k : Monthly Review P r e s s , 1956), p . 230. 64 movement. Even the p o l i t i c a l officer's "watchdog" uuties leaned more toward instruction than punishment. Most crimes were punished by criticism; extreme cases by expulsion from the army. The p o l i t i c a l officer who called his troops together for a c r i t i c a l discussion of "peanut theft" (supra p. 60), rather than confront the hungry soldier with his crime, is an example of such punishment through criticism and instruction. Bertram t e l l s of how a veteran soldier who shot up a Shansi town after getting drunk on New Year's Eve -•- the f i r s t and only case of drunkenness he saw in the Eighth Route Army — was re-70 manded to the P o l i t i c a l Department for "discipline". Soldiers who did not respond well to instruction and criticism — particularly the KMT and warlord soldiers who had defected to the Communists — were "discouraged" from re-enlisting in the Eighth Route Army when their 71 72 hitch was up; the worst-behaved among them were purged immediately. The p o l i t i c a l instruction dispensed by the P o l i t i c a l Depart-ment must have had some effect, for the peasants of Chin-Ch'a-Chi and Shantung identified very closely with the Eighth Route Army, and every foreign v i s i t o r that observed the army at length praised i t s excellent rapport with the people. In the Shantung Guerrilla Area, peasants who had formerly avoided soldiers were said to be very 73 friendly and helpful to the Communist soldiers stationed among them. In the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region, peasants who used to evacuate 70. Bertram; op. c i t . , p. 230. 71. Taylor., op. c i t . , p. 105; see also A British Observer, loc. c i t . , p. 456. 72. Liu Shao-ch'i, loc. c i t . (July 1, 1938), p. 77; see also Epstein, op. c i t . (1939), p. 214. 73. Wang Yu-chuan, loc. c i t . , p. 107. 65 their villages at the approach of warlord soldiers would "bring out tea and food" to refresh Eighth Route Army men passing through their 7 4 villages. The people of Shansi were especially receptive. In November, 1937, the people of North Shansi, who had fled their homes when Shansi provincial troops passed through while fleeing the Jap-anese, returned to their homes in droves when the Eighth Route Army entered the area to resist the Japanese. As soon as they finished settling down in their homes, they sent a delegation to the new local headquarters of the Eighth Route Army to thank the Communists for coming. Women brought brown beans, brown r o l l s , and chickens for the soldiers, who insisted on paying for the food but had their money pressed back into their palms. Later, the women formed National Salvation Associations with Communist help and made cloth shoes for the Eighth Route Army men. In one d i s t r i c t alone, 17,000 shoes were given 76 to the army. The north Shansi men volunteered to guide the soldiers through the surrounding countryside, and cut railroads and telephone lines to disrupt Japanese communications and provide the Eighth Route 77 Army with iron and cable. In 1938, south Shansi peasants, who had been helped with their harvest the year before by Communist soldiers on their way to the front, lined the roads and gave the soldiers pre-7 8 sents when the same unit passed through again. These Shansi pea-sants gave their whole-hearted support to the Red Army ''because they 7 4 . Taylor, op. c i t . , pp. 140-105; see also A British Observer, loc. c i t . , pp. 456-457. 7 5 . Smedley, op. c i t . (1938), pp. 92-94. 7 6 . Epstein, op. c i t . (1939), p. 249. 7 7 . See Stein, op. c i t . , p. 371; and Carlson, op. c i t . (Twin Stars of China), p. 223. 7 8 . Bertram, op. c i t . , p. 203. 66 found i t s conduct a welcome r e l i e f from the racacity and brutality of 79 other armies fighting in Shansi." Thus, one old Shansi peasant woman's words of greeting to Communist soldiers entering her village were: "You are...the good army that doesn't harm people or do e v i l 80 things....You are the Red Army!" This last statement explains much of the successful Commun-i s t expansion i n North China prior to 1940. As one old "China-hand" wrote in 1938, the secret of the Communists' success in North China was their rapport with the peasantry, much of which was built up by 81 the Eighth Route Army's "record...against feudal warlordism." By now, the conclusions of this thesis should be self-evident. The peasant nationalism and agrarian revolution theories which have been advanced as the two principal explanations of Commun-i s t p o l i t i c a l expansion during the Yenan Period do not suffice to ex-plain three years of Communist growth in two very important North China base areas. This being the case, I believe new paths should be taken in the study of Communist p o l i t i c a l expansion from 1937 to 1940, and I am confident that the study of the normative power generated by the Eighth Route Army's behaviour toward the Chinese peasantry w i l l shed new light on the Chinese Revolution. The peasants of North China were familiar enough with bad armies to know a good array when i t came along. A l l evidence indicates that the model discipline and p o l i t i c a l consciousness of the Eighth Route Army were key normative factors en-79. G i l l i n , op. c i t . , p. 264. 80. Ibid., p. 264. 81. 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