Term paper of Asia: Chiang kai-shek in the Shanghai massacre

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MODERNIZATION INTERRUPTED? TOTAL WAR, STATE BREAKDOWN, AND THE COMMUNIST CONQUEST OF CHINA

Author(s): Pavel Osinsky

Source: The Sociological Quarterly , fall 2010, Vol. 51, No. 4 (fall 2010), pp. 576-599

Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40927659

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The Sociological Quarterly ISSN 0038-0253

MODERNIZATION INTERRUPTED? TOTAL WAR, STATE BREAKDOWN, AND THE COMMUNIST CONQUEST OF CHINA

Pavel Osinsky* Appalachian State University

A state- centered perspective in studies of revolutions holds that international pressures contribute

to outbreak of revolutions, assuming that the magnitude and intensity of international pressures

vary from case to case. This study argues that in the paradigmatic communist revolutions of the

20th century, such as the Russian and Chinese Revolutions, the role of the exogenous factor of war

was paramount. After outlining a war-centered framework for studying communist revolutions,

this research shows how the devastating experience of total war against Japan (1937-1945)

undermined the Kuomintang state in China and created structural conditions for the communist takeover.

INTRODUCTION

According to one notable contribution to state formation theory, the origins of com-

munist revolutions and socialist states should be sought in the structural characteristics

of mass mobilization warfare in the first half of the 20th century (Porter 1994). Follow-

ing this premise, it was recently suggested that only a prolonged devastating war, such as

World War I, could cause a complete breakdown of Imperial Russia and create economic

disorganization so immense and living conditions of the population so miserable so that massive social support for radical collective action would be possible. Only large

groups of armed, organized, and disciplined people, mobilized and trained for war, could succeed in overthrowing established authority and, in the end, defeating counter-

revolutionary forces (Osinsky 2008). Such a war- centered argument departs from existing interpretations of communist

revolutions, which focus on long-term historical processes and specific structural condi-

tions in explaining revolutionary change. Among other things, it contests the commonly

held assumption that prerevolutionary political regimes in such countries as Russia and China were ineffective and unviable. Instead, insofar as the Russian Revolution is con-

cerned, it lends support to the scholars who claim that despite the numerous problems

which plagued Russia before the Bolsheviks, it was not destined to undergo the root-and- branch revolution of 1917; rather it was World War I that destroyed it (Service 1999).

This conclusion invites scholars to turn their attention to the origins of another

large communist state, the People's Republic of China. Was the Maoist victory in 1949

predetermined by the course of the modern Chinese history, as internalist theories of

the revolution imply? Were the predecessor of the Communist regime, the Chiang

* Direct all correspondence to Pavel Osinsky, Department of Sociology, Appalachian State University, ASU

Box 32115, Boone, NC 28608-2115; e-mail: [email protected]

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Pavel Osinsky Modernization Interrupted

Kai-shek's Nationalist state, so weak and its policies so ineffective that the Communist

victory in this country became a likely, if not an inescapable, outcome of domestic

revolutionary turmoil? To address these questions, this article outlines a new theoretical

model for studying communist revolution - a war-centered framework. This framework

views the experience of war as the primary cause, context, and condition of the com-

munist mobilization. Building on Charles Tilly's (1975, 1985, 1990) theory of war and

state formation and incorporating ideas from Theda Skocpol's (1979) comparative analysis of social revolutions, this war-centered model offers a coherent structural inter-

pretation of the major communist revolutions, and combines strengths of the existing

contributions while overcoming their limitations. A new, more balanced, assessment of

the Kuomintang regime (1927-49) extracted from a review of recent historical research,

makes up the empirical contribution of this study. I begin my discussion with a brief

overview of two most important theoretical perspectives in studying communist revolutions: a dominant state-centered approach and an alternative, war-centered approach. After outlining a war-centered model, I apply this framework to political

transformations in China in the 1930s through the 1940s.

A STATE-CENTERED APPROACH

The classical state-centered account interprets communist revolutions in Russia and

China as the result of encounters of these agrarian semi-bureaucratic states with the challenges of modernization, which they were not able to overcome. For centuries, the

Romanov's autocracy in Russia and the Qing dynasty in China relied on conservative

landowning elites and proved unable to implement necessary reforms and promote economic development. In the early 20th century, external pressures from the more

advanced nations contributed to weakening and, ultimately, destroying archaic admin-

istrative and military machineries of these empires. This in turn, made possible the

class-based assaults on landed elites and bureaucratic structures by the lower classes

from below. The revolutionary state-builders took advantage of the opportunities created by the breakdown of authorities, seized state power, and established centralized

communist regimes (Skocpol 1979).

Skocpol emphasizes that strong international pressures were very important for

the revolutions to happen. Nowhere was that more obvious than in Russia. By 1917, the

Czarist autocracy was critically undermined by its disastrous performance in the First

World War. Once the monarchical regime collapsed in February 1917, the whole state system began to unravel. According to Skocpol (1979):

Born and tempered in warfare, insulated from, and supreme against, the forces of

society, the Russian state could only succumb through massive defeat in total war.

Thus World War I was to be a necessary cause - as well as the occasion - of the revolutionary crisis that brought Imperial Russia to its demise. (94)

This accurate observation did not, however, induce Skocpol to elevate experience of war to the position of causal centrality in her account of the communist revolutions.

World War I was viewed as a necessary cause of the revolution, but the archaic institu-

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Modernization Interrupted Pavel Osinsky

tions of Russian society that prevented its political and economic modernization seemed

even more important. A thorough account of Russia's prerevolutionary development

includes a brief discussion of the impact of wars, but in general, military conflict was

more a background than a forefront of the story.

In a similar way, the Chinese Revolution was explained by the persistence of archaic

institutions incompatible with the challenges of the modern era. Rural overpopulation,

perpetual fiscal crisis, political decentralization, peasant rebellions, and foreign intru-

sions plagued 19th-century Imperial China. The government's reforms, which aimed to

rationalize state administration, provoked provincial uprisings in 1911 that swept away

the Qing dynasty. After unsuccessful attempts to establish a constitutional republic, the

Chinese society fragmented into several regional satrapies and plunged into the chaotic

period of internecine warfare, which lasted until Kuomintang's recentralization in the late 1920s.

Skocpol acknowledges the state-building accomplishments of the Kuomintang regime (KMT thereafter): the establishment of a national government, creation of a

politically controlled and disciplined army, and construction of a mass-based anti-

imperialist party. Despite these accomplishments, the urban-based KMT was not up to

the formidable challenges it confronted. Even if the KMT had positive potential in the

beginning, its political reorientation from mass mobilization to an alliance with the

national bourgeoisie in the late 1920s placed it on a downward slope. Because of its narrow social base and a short-sighted political strategy, Chiang Kai-shek's regime

proved unable to mobilize resources for economic mobilization and prepare for war. By the mid- 1940s, the KMT turned into a collection of corrupt military cliques, presided

over by Chiang Kai-shek and preoccupied solely with their own survival. Once the war

ended, it did not take long for Chiang's regime to collapse (Skocpol 1979:250-1).

Just as the KMT regime degenerated, the Communists' control over Chinese coun-

tryside strengthened. Party leaders managed to reap all benefits from the creation of

the Second United Front and their legalization in 1937, which allowed increased party

membership, the bolstering of military force, and the expansion of territories under

control. During the war against Japan, Mao pursued the policy of mass mobilization of

the rural poor, a policy which worked remarkably well. In the late 1940s, the party launched a radical land reform, which undermined positions of the landed class and

solidified positions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the countryside. By harnessing support and enthusiasm of the rural masses, which materialized in thou- sands of recruits and massive supplies of resources, the Communists defeated large but demoralized KMT forces.

A WAR-CENTERED APPROACH

A military-fiscal, or more correctly, a war-centered approach in contemporary macro-

sociology views warfare as a primary driving force of state formation (Tilly 1975, 1985, 1990). In contrast to accounts that focus on endogenous factors of state-society trans-

formations, this research suggests that in many episodes of modern history, war is not

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Pavel Osinsky Modernization Interrupted

merely a catalyst but a primary causal agent of macrosocial change, which operates

independently of the endogenous strength or weakness of the state in question. Parti-

cipation in war strengthened some states, left some states as they were, and destroyed

other states. Quite often, war resulted in a dramatic change of a political regime.

For war-centered scholars, origins of mass mobilization states, such as Soviet Russia,

should be sought in the cataclysm of World War I (see Andreski 1954; Kolko 1994; Porter 1994). Before the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914, masses of rural and urban

poor had been employed in local settings, and their primary concerns dealt with the exigencies of daily lives. In a matter of weeks, the draft removed millions of men from their local environments and mundane routines. The fate of these individuals became

dependent on decisions made by supreme military authorities. War became a crash

course in national and international politics. As the war went on, losses multiplied,

and there was no end in sight, soldiers at the front and civilians in the rear began

challenging authorities. When the civilian protests and the mutinies in the army and

the navy merged into one assault on the old regime, the fate of the government was decided. The masses of peasant soldiers (the "grey overcoats") proved to be the decisive

force in overthrowing the Russian monarchy, and a few months later, the Provisional Government.

As applied to China, Chalmers Johnson's (1962) classic study of the communist state-building exemplified a distinctly war-centered analysis. Johnson viewed the out-

break of war against Japan in July 1937 as a clear watershed in the communist struggle

for power. Massive social dislocations caused by war, including Japanese occupation of

large territories and the cruel reprisals against civilian population, altered the political

interests of the largest group of the society - the peasantry. The prewar peasant, accord-

ing to Johnson, was absorbed in local matters and had only the dimmest sense of the

national politics. Japan's invasion placed a heavy toll of extortions and requisitions on

peasants, caused mass suffering in the countryside, and created conditions for patriotic

mobilization. The Communists successfully placed themselves at the head of the war-

mobilized peasantry and became the main beneficiary of popular anti- Japanese resis-

tance. Communism in China, concluded Johnson, was nothing else but "a particularly virulent form of nationalism" (Johnson 1962:xi).

While Johnson's argument definitely may be interpreted as a version of a war-centered approach, there are problems in turning it into a theory of communist

revolutions. Johnson viewed the peasant nationalist movement generated by war as a key

"intervening factor" in his account of the revolution. This argument provoked a lively

debate among students of Chinese history; not all of them accepted this thesis (see Hartford and Goldstein 1989). Furthermore, even if this thesis is valid for China, it clearly does not apply to Russia. Russian Bolshevism was not a nationalist movement;

Lenin and his followers viewed their revolution as the beginning of a world revolution.

They did not mobilize masses to fight the German armies; on the contrary, in order to

survive, the Russian leaders signed a Brest-Litovsk treaty with Germany. Emphasis on

peasant nationalism makes Johnson's perspective too narrow and simplistic to work as an explanation that incorporates the experiences of both countries. If one seeks a

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Modernization Interrupted Pavel Osinsky

synthetic explanation, a war-centered argument has to incorporate factors other than

peasant nationalism. That is why it makes sense to return to SkocpoPs comparative study of revolutions.

THEORIZING REVOLUTIONS IN A WAR-CENTERED FRAMEWORK

A war-centered framework is not incompatible with a state-centered argument. In fact,

a structural model of revolutions, developed by Skocpol, may be incorporated nicely

into a war- centered framework. According to her model, if society experiences external

pressures (often generated by war) but cannot accommodate them because of domestic

obstacles to reform, such pressures may result in a breakdown of the central state

machinery, widespread rebellion of the lower classes, and attempts of oppositional leaders to seize and consolidate state power (Figure 1).

In her monograph, Skocpol wished to develop a general explanation of three great revolutions (in France, Russia, and China) across a broad time span. Since the nature

and intensity of external challenges in each case varied, using a general notion of "international pressures" was appropriate. Now, as far as the communist revolutions in

Russia and China are concerned, there is enough evidence to be more specific. In the

early 20th century, these countries confronted something more than just international

pressures. I argue that the revolutions in Russia and China were caused by their involve-

ment and, eventual defeat in devastating wars against stronger nations.

Many states were involved in total wars but not all of them experienced revolutions.

Most nations underwent transformations short of revolutionary ones. To obtain a

population of cases relevant for this study, I introduce a military-administrative break-

down of a central state authority, caused by war, as a key "intervening variable." By state

breakdown, I refer to a situation in which multiple authorities compete for control over state institutions and the outcome of such contestation is uncertain (see Goldstone

1991; Collins 1999; Stinchcombe 1999). Although Tilly (1978) identified such contexts

as revolutionary situations, not every state breakdown results in a social revolution. A

state crisis may end up in a restoration of an old authority or in new reforms. Social

revolutions take place only if new elite come to power and the very institutional design

of society is transformed.

Military-administrative breakdown of the state

International pressures/ ^- domestic obstacles n. >^

Presence of determined

revolutionary elite

FIGURE 1. SkocpoFs Model of Social Revolution.

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Pavel Osinsky Modernization Interrupted

Such outcomes transpire when two additional factors are present: massive social

unrest and the existence of radical leaders determined to seize power and transform

society based on new principles (Skocpol 1979). There may be various patterns of temporal ordering among the "intervening variables" (state breakdown, widespread

popular unrest, action of the determined revolutionary elite). Under one scenario,

massive popular uprising may initiate state breakdown which, in turn, opens an oppor-

tunity for radical forces to grow and be mobilized by the revolutionary elite (as in

Russia). Under another scenario, a systemic breakdown of state authority may activate

revolutionary forces that, in turn, use this opportunity to foment social unrest (as in China).

Revolutions may be classified according to their political outcomes (communist,

nationalist, fundamentalist, democratic). According to Katz (1997), within each subtype

paradigmatic revolutions and affiliate revolutions can be identified. Paradigmatic revo-

lutions are revolutions driven primarily by internal social forces in which revolutionary

struggles and outcomes are shaped by conditions existing inside countries. Great para-

digmatic revolutions in large countries (Katz calls them "central revolutions") transform

the global political and ideological landscape. They also generate waves of affiliate revolutions. Affiliate revolutions are revolutions in which a revolutionary movement

and/or a revolutionary model are directed or heavily influenced by exogenous forces. This study focuses on the paradigmatic communist revolutions in Russia and China and

does not examine the affiliate communist revolutions in Eastern Europe and East Asia (Figure 2).

Communist revolutions are associated with the massive redistribution of economic

assets and the establishment of collective ownership of the means of production. Usually, such policies are attributed to ideologically driven strategies of the revolution- aries. A recent study of the Russian revolution of 1917 and the German revolution

of 1918 indicates that coercive redistributive action directed against propertied classes

was more a function of the extreme economic polarization and disintegration of the authority system than a result of the deliberate policy of revolutionary leaders.

The process of spontaneous redistribution of property in Russia, for instance, began long before the Bolshevik takeover in October 1917 (Osinsky 2008). The Chinese

State breakdown/multiple

' I revolutionary elite | /» Communist takeover

Widespread popular revolts

FIGURE 2. A Model of Paradigmatic Communist Revolution.

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Modernization Interrupted Pavel Osinsky

Communists learned the potential of popular radicalism from the Russian experience

(and from their own earlier practices) and adopted policies of mass mobilization and

property redistribution as a deliberate form of class struggle, directed and coordinated

by the central party authority.1 Let us reiterate the differences of a war-centered framework, as outlined above,

from the SkocpoFs state-centered approach. First, a war-centered framework seeks

to explain a particular historical outcome: the onset of communist modernization in

two large countries - Russia and China. It does not apply to many (or perhaps most)

social revolutions; there may be a variety of structural configurations leading to such

events. Second, it prioritizes, in a most straightforward and unambiguous way, causal

centrality of war in constructing analytical narratives of two revolutions. It suggests

that war was not merely a catalyst, but a primary cause, condition, and context of

these momentous political transformations. Third, it interprets the massive redistri- bution of economic assets in Russia in structural terms, as an outcome of war-induced

shortages and social polarization, rather than a result as a deliberate, ideologically driven, strategy of revolutionary leaders (although it became a political strategy in China).

The point that most clearly separates a war-centered perspective from a state-

centered theory is the interpretation of the socioeconomic and political conditions in the societies that experienced revolutionary change before war. As applied to China, a

state-centered theory argues that persistent archaic institutions and the failure of reforms were the most important factors of the revolution. A war-centered framework

acknowledges these structural problems but does not view these problems as leading

necessarily to the state collapse. In fact, economic and political development in prewar China, as I argue below, showed encouraging signs. It was war against Japan that

critically undermined the Kuomintang regime and created structural conditions for the Communist takeover.

WHAT DO HISTORIANS SAY?

A critical assessment of the Kuomintang regime, an immediate predecessor of the

Communist government presented in Theda Skocpol's monograph, relies on its depic- tion in historical literature. For years, observers and historians of 20th-century China

(White and Jacoby 1946; Stilwell 1948; Bianco 1971; Tuchman 1972; Eastman 1974, 1984, 1991a, 1991b; Sheridan 1975; Coble 1980, 1991; Ch'i 1982) remained unanimous,

with few dissenting voices (e.g., Young 1971; Sih 1977; Bedeski 1981), in their assessment

of the Kuomintang regime as authoritarian, corrupt, and ineffective. From this perspec- tive, which Van de Ven (2003) named the "Stilwell-White paradigm," the Communist

victory on the eve of the Second World War appeared a natural, almost inevitable historical denouement of the Kuomintang's agonizing experience.2 Because the Chiang

Kai-shek regime was institutionally weak and lacked a broad social base, the Nationalists failed in their modernization mission and had to give way to more popular and effective

modernizers, the Communists.

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Does this unequivocally critical assessment of the Nationalist government and of

the Republican period in general still hold? What do recent studies in modern Chinese

history have to tell us about this period?

A review of recent scholarship on modern China reveals several interesting trends.

First, whereas older studies viewed Nationalist China as a state of interregnum, recent

research approaches it on its own terms as a politically structured society with distinct

institutional characteristics and social dynamics. Contemporary scholars' attention has

shifted away from a depiction of the early 20th-century China as a rural, backward,

traditional society to a greater awareness of Chinese modernity (Yeh 2000). Big cities

and urban experience have become one of the most extensively researched areas (Strand

1989, 2000). The interwar Shanghai emerged as a visible symbol of a new modern urban

culture (Henriot 1993; Goodman 1995; Yeh 2007). As our knowledge of this period expands, scholars have turned to the peripheral topics as diverse as nation-building

and citizenship (Fitzgerald 1996; Harrison 2000), industrial development and planning

(Bian 2005), the national bourgeoisie (Bergère 1989; Coble 1980, 2003), regional net-

works and identities (Goodman 1995), local elites (Esherick and Rankin 1990), gangs and the criminal world (Wakeman 1995, 1996; Martin 1996), education and academia (Yeh

1990), commerce and consumption (Yeh 1997; Siu 2000), culture and arts (Lee 1999), and

gender and sexuality (Gilmartin 1995; Duara 2000; Henriot and Castelino 2001).

Second, the role and the policies of the KMT party state have also been reconsidered.

The KMT, scholars argue, was never a polar opposite of the Communists (Esherick 1995,

2001; Schoppa 2000; Cohen 2003). In economic matters, the KMT pursued policies of

the developmental state. A number of planning agencies were established, and a plethora

of plans were compiled. Scientists and engineers were brought in to design economic

development strategies. A large state enterprise system was set up. Foreign technologies

and organizational models were carefully studied and adopted (Kirby 1984, 1990, 2000).

Governmental agencies attempted (although they hardly succeeded) to rationalize administrative practices, fight corruption, and eliminate inefficiencies (Strauss 1998;

Thornton 2007). Strategic military plans were drafted and extensive military prepara-

tions were made (Van de Ven 2003). True, the KMT was not given much time and many

projects were left on paper, but it is wrong to claim that the Nationalists did nothing to transform Chinese society.

Third, a massive body of scholarship focuses on the experience of the War of Resistance (1937-1945) as a pivotal event in modern Chinese history (see review in Gordon 2006). This war, Levine (1992) reminds us, lasted twice as long as the Soviet- German or American-Japanese conflicts. By all accounts, it was a total war. Between 15

to 20 million Chinese perished (Kirby 1992). The Japanese army committed mass atrocities against the civilian population (Chang 1997). National industry and infra- structure were almost completely destroyed. The rural economy was ruined. National currency became worthless (Kirby 1992). The War of Resistance transformed Chinese

society in a most profound way (Lary and MacKinnon 2002). Incidentally, contempo- rary research indicates that the Nationalists followed strategies that were appropriate

to the conditions they faced. The problem was not incompetence, lack of will, or

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Modernization Interrupted Pavel Osinsky

corruption, but the reality that China was not yet a society that could cope with the demands of modern warfare (Van de Ven 2003).

AN ANALYSIS TO FOLLOW

From the discussion presented above, two major interpretations of the political develop-

ment of China from 1930s to 1940s maybe identified. A state-centered argument suggests

that the communist revolution in China originated in structural problems of a traditional

agrarian society facing mounting challenges of the modern age and weak state institutions

lacking social support, self-determination, and resources to meet these challenges.

A war-centered argument suggests that despite the onerous legacy of the past and the

inauspicious beginnings of state-building reforms, China's modernization showed positive signs. The war against Japan, however, undid these positive trends. Japanese

aggression brought about economic collapse and social disorganization, weakened state institutions, and, conversely, gave a chance to Mao and his followers. The rest of the article,

which supports a war-centered argument, elaborates on the following propositions:

First, the KMT regime had achieved reasonable progress in promoting economic

growth and political consolidation before the war. It is true that this state-building

process was very difficult and was not completed by the time of Japanese aggression, but

the general political approach to greater centralization and administrative rationaliza- tion was unambiguous.

Second, whatever problems that plagued the Nationalist state before war, it was

Japanese aggression that caused a deep protracted crisis of Chiang Kai-shek's regime.

The authority of the KMT deflated and dissipated as Japanese armies penetrated the

country. To survive, the KMT had to leave large territories to the enemy and rely on

increasingly intrusive methods of resource extraction. These methods, together with an

inflationary policy for funding the war, eroded the social base of the KMT regime.

Third, the beginning of war breathed new life into the communist movement and

gave communists a unique opportunity to strengthen their armies and expand control

over large territories of China. Military control over large territories, in turn, allowed communists to launch a social revolution in the countryside. The presence of an agrar-

ian problem by itself did not translate into coordinated collective action on a national scale until communists mobilized peasants. That would not be possible without enhanced military-administrative capacity and territorial control built by the CCP in

the years of the War of Resistance.

"THE NANKING DECADE"

Establishing a centralized bureaucratic state in China was the most significant accomplishment of Chiang Kai-shek's regime during the Nanking decade (1928-1937).

Creating a disciplined, politically indoctrinated army was the first step on this road (Bedeski 1981). Moving from its initial dislocation in a southern city, Canton, in 1927, the KMT forces were able to establish control over the key lower Yangtze region in

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Pavel Osinsky Modernization Interrupted

central China. The internecine struggle between the left wing of the KMT, which

created a national government with a capital in Wuhan, and the center-right faction,

which established itself in Nanking, ended with a victory by the latter because of the

timely financial assistance from Shanghai bourgeoisie. In early 1928, the KMT forces

expanded their authority to most of northern China, including Peking. The new gov-

ernment was installed in the city of Nanking in the lower Yangtze, which became the

capital of Nationalist China. Following Sun Yat-sen's three-step design of political reform (military rule, tutelage, democracy), the KMT announced that the military

period was over and inaugurated the period of tutelage (i.e., the KMT one-party rule), which was to last four years. Chiang Kai-shek called for the demobilization of armies,

the convocation of the National Assembly, and the adoption of a constitution (Van de Ven 2003:123-36).

Military- administrative consolidation, however, was neither an easy process nor was

it completely accomplished. After the proclamation of the national government, Chiang

Kai-shek's authority was challenged by regional warlords: the Guangxi Clique (1929,

1936), Feng Yuxiang (the "Christian general") (1929), a coalition of Feng Yuxiang, Yen

Xishan (the "Model governor"), and the Guangxi Clique (1930). Commenting on the inauspicious beginnings of KMT rule, Strauss (1998:24) noted, "In retrospect, it seems surprising that the Nanking government survived at all." It was not until the mid- 1930s,

after outmaneuvering his political rivals within the KMT, that Chiang Kai-shek became

a recognized national leader. However, the authority of the Nanking government in many regions remained conditional on its cooperation with warlords who retained

political autonomy, buttressed by their military forces. Until 1936, the Central govern-

ment lacked a system of universal conscription. Yet, if one asks whether the position

of the central government was stronger in 1937 than it was 10 years before, the answer would be affirmative.

The CCP was another longtime rival to the KMT. In the 1920s, the Communists and

the Nationalists successfully collaborated in anti-imperialist struggle but eventually, because of political differences, parted ways. Chiang Kai-shek suspected that the CCP

was merely an instrument in the Comintern's far-reaching plans. The growing influence

of Soviet advisers and their Chinese followers irritated Chiang Kai-shek, whose entire

political career was dedicated to relieving China of foreign dominance. These frictions

soon led to an open confrontation. During a bloody purge of the leftists and the communists from 1927 to 1928, the CCP was seriously weakened. Soviet advisers were sent back to Russia. Yet from 1929 to 1930, the CCP seemed to recover its former

strength. Having failed to foment urban revolution, the Communists shifted their activi-

ties to the countryside. After establishing bases in rural areas of Southern China, they resumed their efforts to seize big cities. In the course of several successive "bandit

suppression" campaigns in the early 1930s, Chiang Kai-shek's military command, assisted by German advisers, inflicted a serious blow to the CCP. In October 1934,

remnants of the Communist forces broke the encirclement of the KMT troops in Kiangsi, and after a yearlong march northwest (the Long March), arrived to the barren

peripheral area in the province of Shaanxi with few prospects for future success.

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Modernization Interrupted Pavel Osinsky

After defeating his main political rivals, Chiang Kai-Shek initiated several mass mobilization campaigns purported to rally the population around the new regime. Imbued with a civilizing mission to modernize China on Neoconfiician principles, Chiang-Kai-shek launched a "New Life Movement," which propagated ideas of state-

hood, national unity, discipline, civil conduct, and personal hygiene. The government

sponsored a KMT-controlled youth movement and semi-militarized corps of the "Blue

Shirts," that in many ways ominously resembled the European fascists ( Wakeman 1997).

These campaigns remained carefully orchestrated and controlled from above. Chiang Kai-shek avoided a model of a Western-like liberal democracy, preferring instead

to rely on time-tested bureaucratic instruments in transforming Chinese society.

Although many researchers interpret this as one of the factors contributing to his defeat,

Strauss (1998) argues that under the circumstances existing at the time it was a rational

strategy, which allowed the KMT to achieve success in insulating bureaucracy from

external pressures, promote professionalization of the civil service, and pursue some

of its strategic goals. Her case study of several departments of the KMT government contradicts the common perception of the National government organizations as uniformly corrupt and ineffective.

The KMT government was moderately successful in collecting revenues and allocating financial resources. When the Nationalists took over the government in 1928, there was no real system of national budget, accounting, and fiscal control. Chiang Kai-shek's ministers of finance, T. V. Soong and H. H. Kung, managed to create

a centralized budgetary system and functional fiscal institutions collecting taxes and customs almost from scratch (Young 1971). From 1929 to 1937, revenues increased 2.6 times, from 334 million yuan to 870 million yuan. Although military spending grew

during the Nanking decade, state officials tried to keep military expenses in check. Of course, new authorities confronted many obstacles on the path of fiscal rational-

ization. The expenditures outpaced the revenues and the resulting deficit, which made

up about one-fifth of expenditures, and had to be financed by borrowing from banks

and the public. Nonetheless, it is difficult to deny the KMT's accomplishments in this area. Young (1971:160) claims: "Overall, China's fiscal system in 1937 had been remarkably transformed from the chaotic condition of ten years earlier. There were serious defects and weaknesses, but in fiscal matters the government was beginning to

be able to act effectively" (Table 1).

Contrary to earlier studies that advance a thesis of economic stagnation during the

Nanking decade (e.g., Paauw 1957; Feuerwerker 1968), the bulk of more recent literature

does not indicate that Republican China experienced economic stagnation or, even less so, an economic decline. On the contrary, as far as industry is concerned, it registered a

remarkable growth (Chang 1967; Young 1971; Rawski 1989; Brandt 1997; Fenby 2004). According to Chang (1967:68), from 1931 to 1936 industrial production grew at the enviable annual rate of 9.3 percent, which was roughly equal to the growth rate

(9.2 percent) obtained through most of the prewar period (1912-1936). Incidentally, this latter rate exceeded rates of industrial development in such countries as Japan

(6.6 percent), Great Britain (4.4 percent), and Russia (7.9 percent) (Rawski 1989:70).

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Pavel Osinsky Modernization Interrupted

TABLE 1. Revenues and Expenditures of the Nationalist Government (1929-37, million yuan)

Share of military

Deficit covered Total military expenses in total Year Revenue Expenditure by borrowing expenses expenditure

1929 334 434 100 210 48.4

1930 484 585 101 245 41.9

1931 558 775 217 312 40.3

1932 619 749 130 305 40.6

1933 614 699 86 321 45.9

1934 689 836 147 373 44.6

1935 745 941 196 388 41.2

1936 817 1,073 256 390 36.3

1937 870 1,167 297 521 44.6

Source: Young (1971:38, 438).

Modern industry was concentrated in coastal areas, such as the Shanghai region and Manchuria, and included a large share of foreign-owned enterprises.

It is true that modern urban-based sectors of economy such as industry, transpor-

tation, and communication, made less than 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)

in the mid- 1930s (Brandt 1997:287). As far as agriculture - the dominant sector of the

Chinese economy at the time - was concerned, the overall picture was more complex.

According to Eastman (1974), because of the combined impact of the Great Depression,

particularly cash crops' price decline and adverse weather conditions (droughts and floods), the Chinese countryside was in a deep crisis during much of the 1930s. Wors-

ening economic conditions caused massive impoverishment and large-scale migration to more prosperous rural areas and urban centers. By imposing numerous new taxes

and subcharges, the KMT government contributed to the plight of farmers. Faure's (1985) study of peasants in the southern coastal areas Jiangnan and the Pearl River Delta

corroborates Eastman's perspective: until the 1930s, the economy in these rural areas

experienced a stable growth, but with the outbreak of the depression and the plunge

of prices on silk and rice, these cash crop-oriented rural economies suffered major setbacks. Giving a somewhat different twist to this story, Huang (1985) interprets the

negative trends in the 1930s in a context of a long-term agrarian involution, arguing that

it was a combination of long-term semi-proletarization and short-term disasters that

made the conditions of poor Chinese peasants so desperate.

The rest of the literature, however, does not paint a uniformly negative picture. In his

study of agricultural development in two coastal provinces of northern China, Hopei and Shantung, Myers (1971:124) claims:

There is not any evidence that peasant living standards before 1937 declined

Even though household farms gradually diminished in size, average productivity was

maintained. Furthermore, the manufacture of village handicrafts, the introduction of

industrial crops, and the new opportunities of nonfarm employment in nearby cities

enabled peasants to augment their income from cereal and vegetable production.

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Using new evidence, Brandt (1990:6) argues that from 1912 to 1937 the Chinese

rural economy experienced rapid commercialization as well as growth of output and

that the benefits of the commercialization were much more evenly distributed among

rural households than was previously believed. Arguing along similar lines, Rawski (1989:330) indicates that the annual growth rate for agriculture from 1914-1918 to

1931-1936 was in the range of 1.4-1.7 percent and claims that the actual extent and

impact of taxation remained relatively modest. "Revisionist" historians, such as Rawski

and Brandt, acknowledge the impact of the Great Depression but do not believe that it

reversed positive trends. Agricultural regions varied in their degree of commercializa-

tion and susceptibility to external market fluctuations. Many interior areas, as Wright's

(2000) study of the southwest shows, remained weakly commercialized and did not

experience serious economic dislocations caused by the global economic crisis. As far as

north China is concerned, Myers (1971:278) states:

For six years North China enjoyed a brief respite from war, and by 1936 agriculture

had recovered from the effects of the depression. The government launched many

projects for internal improvement. The yearly harvests were good, and food imports

were cut drastically. The outbreak of war in 1937 altered everything.

To sum up, the picture that emerges from various studies of the "Nanking decade" is

definitely not one of deterioration but rather of a "spatially-differentiated and uneven

growth process" (Brandt 1997:283). Van de Ven (2003:169) concludes: At the eve of the War of Resistance, China was in better military and economic shape

than a decade earlier. Nationalist political and military power had spread well beyond its initial base of the Lower Yangtze provinces. Conditions in the countryside

had improved

known for decades.

THE WAR OF RESISTANCE

By the time of the beginning of the War of Resistance in July 1937, an undeclared military

conflict in northern China has been under way for six years. The Japanese occupied

Manchuria in fall 1931 and installed a puppet state of Manchukuo the next year. In early

1932, Chinese and Japanese forces waged a two-month war in Shanghai. The Kwantung

army occupied North China's provinces Jehol in 1933, Chahar and Hopei in 1935, and Suiyuan in 1936. If 1937 was a watershed, it was a watershed not in the sense that Japanese

began war but more in the sense that the Nationalist forces began to resist. Until that time,

Chiang Kai-shek evaded open confrontation with the Japanese. Each time the central government failed to resist, its prestige suffered (Coble 1991). Few, however, were willing

to ponder whether or not Chiang Kai-shek really had a choice. Subsequent events had

proven that Chiang Kai-shek was prudent in postponing confrontation.

For the Chinese, the beginning of a full-scale war in July 1937 brought about major

military setbacks. In essence, it was a fight of a well-trained, mechanized army with a

large, but poorly armed and badly coordinated military force, consisting of drafted troops as well as ragtag mercenary formations. Nominally, Chinese troops outnumbered

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Pavel Osinsky Modernization Interrupted

the Japanese army by a factor of four, but the military effectiveness of the Japanese was

much higher. Every Japanese division had 24 tanks and 266 trucks, while every Chinese

division had none (Ch'i 1982:47-48). Historians still debate the wisdom of Chiang Kai-shek's decision to open a second front in Shanghai, which invited a full-scale Japanese invasion (Van de Ven 2003). In this campaign, Chinese troops suffered five

times greater casualties than the Imperial army (Coox 1989:320). In fall 1937, the Japanese occupied Shanghai, Nanking, and other coastal metropolitan centers, killing

and torturing thousands of civilians, spreading terror, and depriving the Chinese government of its main manufacturing capacities.

The retreat of the Nationalist forces to the southwest corner of China, with the

central government evacuated to Chongqing, reduced opportunities for economic mobilization. The enemy cut China's access to international markets. In fall 1939, Japanese troops seized strategic sea ports in Kiangsi and Kwantung. The next year, the

Japanese occupied the northern part of French Indochina, closing the railroad between

Hanoi and southern China. Thus, in fall 1940 the Nationalist regime found itself in a

blockade. Beginning in 1941, the KMT forces began experiencing serious shortages of

provision and supplies. To keep its army at a minimal level of fighting capacity, the KMT

government had to rely on increasingly intrusive methods of manpower recruitment

and resource extraction (introducing, for instance, the much-hated land tax). These

methods, together with subsidizing the war effort by printing more money, led to a rapid

loss of popular confidence and support. Since the state failed in its central function

of protecting the population from aggression, and yet still continued to extract recruits

and provision at enormous rates, the rural population began to despise the KMT troops

as much as they hated the Japanese invaders.

In a situation where the enemy was better armed and better equipped, direct engage-

ment of regular armies was disastrous for the Nationalist side. Whenever Chinese troops

and the Japanese army clashed, the latter almost always prevailed. Methods of "guerilla

warfare" employed by the Communists or warlords loyal to Chiang Kai-shek would be

more effective under such conditions. Having learned that frontal battles against the Japanese would leave him with a depleted army, Chiang preferred to trade space for time,

hoping that the United States, which joined the war in 1941, would soon overcome

Japan. But there were limits to this strategy. After all, the KMT forces could not simply

leave all territories to the enemy. Had they done this, they would relinquish the claim for

being the legitimate government of China. When the Japanese installed a collaboration-

ist government of Wang Jingwei in Nanking, complete disengagement and retreat

were politically impermissible. In 1944, when the Japanese launched the massive Ichigo

offensive, the Nationalist government almost collapsed. Fortunately for Chiang Kai-shek, the fighting potential of the enemy, Japan, which was losing the Pacific War against the United States, was also almost exhausted.

After Japan surrendered in August 1945, the KMT government had to recover the

Chinese territories it had lost. In this operation, it was assisted by the U.S. armed forces that secured control over strategic points in coastal provinces before the KMT's arrival. The Communists retreated to northeast and ensconced themselves in the

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Modernization Interrupted Pavel Osinsky

Soviet-occupied Manchuria. As long as the Soviet Union and the United States co- operated in their efforts to prevent civil war in China, the conflict between the KMT

and the CCP was in check. As soon as the superpowers' interests came into conflict,

the old enmities between the KMT and the CCP would resurface with new intensity (Westad 1993).

In the first phase of the full-scale civil war, which began in the summer of 1946, the

Nationalists seemed to be winning. However, the situation was soon reversed. The Nationalist troops possessed a low fighting spirit. When the long war against Japan was

over, soldiers could not understand why Chinese should be fighting Chinese. Their families needed them at home. In the meantime, the economic policies of the Nation-

alists, employing administrative controls to curb hyperinflation turned disastrous

and extremely unpopular among the urban population. The KMT regime had lost any

credibility and social support. In 1948-49, the Communist armies conquered most of China. In October 1949, the People's Republic of China was proclaimed in Peking.

THE COMMUNISTS' ROAD TO POWER

In retrospect, the Japanese invasion gave the Communists perhaps their only chance at a revolution (Esherick 1995). In 1935, the situation was quite different. For Chiang

Kai-shek, the Japanese represented "disease of the skin," whereas the "communist bandits" were a "disease of the heart," which he was determined to eradicate. To avoid

extermination, the main Communist forces left their Kiangsi base and, under incessant

attacks by KMT troops, retreated northwest to Shaanxi. Less than 10 percent of those

who began this "Long March" made their way to their new base in Yan'an. In central

China, according to Chen Yung-fa (1986:24), the KMT had reduced Communist forces

to "a few lingering sparks among dead ashes."

While Chiang Kai-shek remained determined to carry out his "bandit extermina-

tion" campaign to the end, some of his allies began questioning the wisdom of this

strategy. Losses of northern provinces Chahar and Hopei to the Japanese in the 1935 created an extremely negative public resonance. Chang Hsueh-liang, the former warlord of Manchuria, who was ordered to defeat the remnants of the Communist troops,

did not believe that they were the main enemy. In 1936, he opened secret negotiations

with the CCP leaders, hoping for cooperation in fighting the Japanese. When Chiang Kai-shek arrived to Sian to expedite the final anticommunist offensive in December

1936, he was arrested by Chang Hsiieh-liang's troops and, after several days in custody,

was induced to negotiate with Communists. The Sian incident became a turning point in the anti- Japanese resistance and a

remarkable political turnabout for the Communists. Chiang Kai-shek stopped the "bandit suppression" campaign and agreed to create the United Front with the CCP. With the creation of the United Front, the CCP was given a unique opportunity to

reorganize and increase its numbers. In 1937, Communist troops in North China were redeployed as the Eighth Army of the KMT. In 1938, the New Fourth Army was created out of Communist forces in Central China. Both armies retained much autonomy. As

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Pavel Osinsky Modernization Interrupted

the KMT army retreated West and Japanese troops took control over the major cities and

railroads, the Communist guerillas filled the ensuing vacuum of authority in smaller towns and rural areas.

Using Latin American history, Wickham-Crowley (1991:17) distilled a working model of peasant-guerilla relations. This model postulates that guerilla leaders secure

supporters and rank-and-file combatants largely through macrosocial exchange pro- cesses. The most important elements in that exchange process are not selective benefits,

but collective benefits. The collective benefits that induce the peasantry to support social

movements are the collective goods supported by governments: protection from exter-

nal and internal enemies, the provision of legal and administrative order, and contri-

butions to the material security of the populace. In other words, guerillas may elicit

peasant support only if they become an effective, benevolent, welfare-providing local

government.

As applied to China, this model (evoking Tilly's "protection racket" argument) represents, I believe, a major improvement over the older "mass mobilization," "indoc-

trination," and other explanations of the Communist success among rural population.

As recent literature amply indicates, Communists succeeded in being an effective,

welfare-providing government. The task of winning peasants' sympathies was not easy.

Communists had to compete with other protection-providing agencies (the KMT, the "puppet" government, local bullies, etc.). Yet, communists succeeded in meeting peasants' expectations and providing the rural population with protection, rent and tax

reductions, work assistance, education, women's empowerment, and other welfare benefits (see Chen 1986; Wou 1994; Benton 1999).

In response, peasants volunteered for Mao's troops and supplied them with neces-

sary resources. From 1937 to 1945, the Communist Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army expanded almost tenfold, from 92,000 to 910,000. The increase in mem-

bership of the Chinese Communist Party during the war was even more impressive, from 40,000 to 1,211,128 (Van Slyke 1991:188-89). The population of the Communist-

controlled areas increased from 1.5 million to over 100 million, and the original territory

of 92,000 square kilometers expanded to 950,000 square kilometers (Wu 1992:79). When Communist forces advanced in new areas, they often found peasant populations

welcoming their arrival. One doubts if the CCP would be given a chance for such experimentation without Japan's prior defeat of the KMT. After the war, Mao Tse-tung

repeatedly expressed gratitude to the Japanese for their indispensable help in creating the revolution (Pepper 1999:xxix)!

MODERNIZATION INTERRUPTED?

In explaining the Communist triumph, some historians tend to downplay the important

consequences of the war against Japan. Things, they argue, were actually decided in

the battles of the Civil War (1946-49). Westad (2003:7-8) claims, for example, that despite the KMT's weakness, the outcome of the conflict with the Communists was not

predetermined in 1945:

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Modernization Interrupted Pavel Osinsky

On the contrary, the GMD possessed considerable advantages over all domestic challengers as the war with Japan ended. It was in control of the state, with its power

to tax, to conscript, and to appoint. Its government's legitimacy was widely recog-

nized, both at home and abroad

with comprehensive treaties with both the United States and the Soviet Union.

No doubt, Mao Tse-tung's victory was not assured in 1945. The Communists still

had many battles to fight to overpower the Chiang Kai-shek's forces during the years of

the Civil War (1946-1949). History may well have turned the other way, if, for example,

the United States and the Soviet Union resolved to cooperate in preventing the Civil

War. Much depended, as Tsou (2000) and Westad (2003) argue, on the policy choices

the Nationalists and their opponents made. Chiang Kai-shek's obstinate determination

to end the conflict by military means and forgo a political compromise may seem in

retrospect to be a major political mistake. On the other hand, Mao's economic and political strategies, particularly a radical agrarian reform, which helped to secure mass

social support in the countryside, vastly contributed to the CCP's ultimate success. The

narrative presented above tells part of the larger story. A war-centered argument should

be expanded to encompass the experience of the Civil War. Yet, the Civil War did not

begin on a new political terrain with a set of fresh, new players on each side. As Suzanne

Pepper (1999:xxiii) noted: The conditions necessary for communist success had undoubtedly been established

prior to 1945. The subsequent final 1945-49 phase of the CCP's rise to power was not a time when necessary sites were selected and essential foundations laid, but when the added structures of military and political power required for final victory

were completed.

Why was war against Japan critical in creating structural conditions and forging the

agency for the power shift later on? Let us examine the KMT's hold over Chinese society,

focusing on economic relations, class structure, political situation, and international affairs before and after the war. Before the war, as I have shown above, the Chinese

economy experienced growth, and prospects of its development seemed positive. The

most appropriate characterization for the state of the Chinese economy after the war

would be catastrophe. At the end of the war, the value of industrial production of

nonoccupied China accounted for little more than 12 percent of the prewar Chinese

production (Kirby 1992:191). The rural economy, undermined by recruitment of man-

power, unbearable taxes, and natural disasters, experienced deep crisis. Because the

government subsidized its war effort mostly by printing currency, the large amount of

money in circulation caused hyperinflation. Wholesale prices in Shanghai, to give one example, skyrocketed fivefold from September 1945 to February 1946 and thirtyfold

again one year later (Taylor 2000:154, 161). These dire economic conditions, in turn, eroded the small constituency supportive

of the KMT rule. Chiang Kai-shek alienated the Chinese urban working class during

its bloody suppression of the labor movement in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The

government antagonized the peasantry, the largest group of the population, by its ruthless recruitment and requisitions campaigns during the war against the Japanese.

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Pavel Osinsky Modernization Interrupted

Now the government lost support of the urban middle class, the traditional stronghold

of the KMT, which bore the primary burden of inflation. Disillusionment and frustra-

tion with Chiang Kai-shek's economic policies turned most of the urban population either hostile or indifferent to the KMT's policies (Pepper 1999).

The war clearly undermined the KMT's dominant position in Chinese politics. Even before the war the KMT's administrative grasp was tenuous, particularly at the

local level. The Japanese destroyed the KMT's bureaucratic structures and, because the occupiers themselves were not able to penetrate the depth of the society, created a

power vacuum underneath their major administrative outposts. Communists filled

the vacuum of authority at the grassroots level and gained support of the masses by

providing public goods and benefits. When the KMT, weakened by the war, tried to

recover the country after Japan's defeat, Communists had already secured support in

many local areas throughout the country.

Finally, the war changed the global geopolitical environment. In the final phase of

the war the Soviet Union joined the conflict and occupied Manchuria in August 1945. For the Chinese Communists, the strategic importance of this windfall was difficult to

overestimate (just compare Manchuria with the previous Communist bases in Kiangsi

or Yan'an). Protected by the Red Army, the Communist troops poured into Manchuria

and took over administration of major cities and towns. On the other hand, acknowl-

edging a major contribution of the CCP to the victory over the Japanese and trying to

forestall a civil war between the KMT and the CCP, the U.S. government made strenuous

efforts to negotiate a resolution of the conflict. These efforts, as we know, did not bring

success but helped to improve the political positions of the CCP, legitimizing it as a major power in Chinese politics.

The most important thing about the War of Resistance was the fact that it shifted

the balance of power in China. The CCP had become a major national force with large,

effective, and battle-hardened armies, supplied and supported by the Soviet Union. Despite the fact that the KMT remained a dominant political force (and its nominal

military force even increased), it suffered the loss of public confidence and political clout. Most importantly, because of the erosion of the traditional power of landlords, it

lost most of its influence at the local level, particularly in the countryside. This power

shift made the radical agrarian reform advocated by the Communists possible on a

much larger scale. Once masses of peasants were able to enjoy the "fruits of the struggle,"

they turned to the side of the Communists in numbers. The urban population, dis-

tressed by the failure of the government's economic policy, did not resist the Peoples' Liberation Army.

Some time ago, Steven Levine (1992:xviii) raised an intriguing question: "Without the need to confront Japanese aggression, would the Nationalist government have been

able to consolidate and expand its political control and to guide the process of devel-

opment?" The evidence presented above, provides an additional rationale for raising this question.

According to Skocpol (1979:247-251), the KMT did not succeed because it did not rely on mass mobilization and could not draw on the resources that such mobilization

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Modernization Interrupted Pavel Osinsky

would make available. Therefore, it would fail anyway, sooner or later, with or without

the international pressures.

From a comparative standpoint, however, it makes sense to consider other scenarios.

The 20th century witnessed several successful "revolutions from above" that relied

on the military-bureaucratic apparatus of the state (Trimberger 1978). Military- bureaucratic authoritarianism was a common phenomenon in the interwar Europe.

After large empires (Russian, Hapsburg, Ottoman) disintegrated following World War I,

several successor states crystallized as military-bureaucratic regimes, directed by strong

authoritarian leaders, from Mannerheim's Finland, to Pilsudski's Poland, to Horthy's

Hungary. Subsequently, some of these praetorian regimes underwent political modern-

ization following a path similar to the one envisioned by Sun Yat-sen for China (including military rule, tutelage, and democracy).

The Ataturk's "revolution from above" in Turkey, which took place almost simulta-

neously with the KMT's rise to power in China, provides an interesting parallel with

Chiang Kai-shek's policies. Both Mustafa Kemal and Chiang Kai-shek began as military

leaders aspiring to centralize state authority under their command. Both managed to

defeat strong opponents and consolidate their power. Both relied on military forces in

state-building efforts. Both tried to modernize their countries from above. Both estab-

lished one-party rule and eschewed liberal democracy of the Western type. Arguably, the

Turkish state-builder confronted fewer challenges than Chiang Kai-shek. There were

neither powerful regional warlords, nor a major challenge from the left. Yet, the Turkish

case showed how slow and difficult the process of modernization was even in the absence of such challenges. The democratic multiparty system, for instance, was rees-

tablished only in 1950 (Kalaycioglu 2005). Nonetheless, it is not inconceivable that in the

absence of war, following a developmental path similar to the KemaPs policy in Turkey,

the KMT would accomplish administrative consolidation and achieve a greater success in modernization in China.

Whether or not one views such a scenario as plausible, it is time to move beyond the

argument, which prioritizes the historical legacy of China's backwardness and ineffec-

tiveness of the KMT regime in explaining the demize of the Nationalist state. Instead, we

need to place the experiences of Nationalist China in the context of comparative devel-

opment and military-economic competition in East Asia in the first half of the 20th century. The evidence reviewed in this study indicates that Chiang Kai-shek's regime was

not predestined to fall. A more historically grounded explanation of the Chiang Kai-shek's failure and the communist triumph should be constructed by focusing on

China's experience with total war against Japan and its devastating effects on Chinese

economy, state, and society.

Finally and most importantly, my analysis indicates that the historical record of socioeconomic and political transformations in China of the 1930s-1940s is consistent

with a war-centered approach in interpreting communist revolutions. Like Russia in the

beginning of the 20th century, the Kuomintang China experienced serious structural

problems in the 1930s. Both countries remained agrarian, semi-bureaucratic states at the threshold of the industrial modernization. Both societies were affected (at times

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Pavel Osinsky Modernization Interrupted

paralyzed) by the surge of social unrest in the main cities and the countryside. Modern

political structures, such as elected legislative institutions, were grafted in the structures of

the authoritarian state and did not provide opportunities for broad political partici-

pation. Because of limited access to political institutions, radical political parties and

organizations proliferated. Nonetheless, there are few historical grounds to argue that any

of these problems or even all of them together represented an insurmountable obstacle to

development. Many countries in east Europe and east Asia (not to speak of modern third

world countries) began their postimperial or postcolonial transitions in similar or even

worse conditions but managed to avoid a communist interregnum and terrible human

costs associated with it. The fact that processes of modernization in Russia and China were

interrupted was due primarily to involvement of both countries in the devastating

military conflicts against far more developed nations. The total war of the 20th century

undermined economic and political institutions of these societies and brought about social and political calamities of unprecedented proportions. Communist seizure of state authority in these countries became possible only under conditions of total state

breakdown and societal disorganization caused by experience of disastrous total war.

NOTES

!The very event of taking power by the communists, as we know, does not ensure that the

communists stay in power. The takeover of power by radical socialists aimed at expropriating

private property is usually accompanied by the fierce resistance of propertied classes, which typically takes the form of civil war. Under which conditions communists are able to win civil war

is a separate issue to be addressed elsewhere. At this point, I limit my analysis to the communist seizure of central state authority and do not go any further.

2Joseph Stilwell, an American military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, and Theodore White, an

American journalist in wartime China, left particularly critical accounts of the KMT government.

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Contents

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Issue Table of Contents

The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 4 (fall 2010) pp. 537-709

Front Matter
CIVIC SOCIOLOGY [pp. 537-549]
THE SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN MEDICAL EDUCATION: Class, Status, and Party Influences on Occupational Closure, 1902-1919 [pp. 550-575]
MODERNIZATION INTERRUPTED? TOTAL WAR, STATE BREAKDOWN, AND THE COMMUNIST CONQUEST OF CHINA [pp. 576-599]
THE EFFECTS OF RACIAL/ETHNIC SEGREGATION ON LATINO AND BLACK HOMICIDE [pp. 600-623]
LIMITS TO SOCIAL CAPITAL: Comparing Network Assistance in Two New Orleans Neighborhoods Devastated by Hurricane Katrina [pp. 624-648]
CONTRIBUTOR INFLUENCE IN CONGRESS: Social Ties and PAC Effects on U.S. House Policymaking [pp. 649-677]
THE COLOR OF WELFARE SANCTIONING: Exploring the Individual and Contextual Roles of Race on TANF Case Closures and Benefit Reductions [pp. 678-707]
MIDWEST SOCIOLOGICAL SOCIETY SEEKS EDITOR FOR "THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY" [pp. 708-709]
Back Matter