7 - Farewell to Revolution

Summary

Despite the intensified Chinese nationalism in the Resistance War, ironically the CYP leaders found their radical nationalism lost its solid support in Chinese society. Furthermore, the CYP also lost its dominant influence in Sichuan, resulting in significant political weakening in its struggle with the GMD and the CCP. It was in this context the CYP began to deradicalize. This chapter examines this sudden change and discusses in four sections how the CYP reached “Roosevelt” from “Mussolini.” The first section examines how the CYP unrevolutionized as both the international and internal situations forced the CYP to accommodate more liberalist politics. The second section documents the CYP’s contribution to forming and splitting the Chinese Democratic League in its struggles with the CCP and the GMD. The third section delineats the inter-party relations between the CYP and GMD in the mid-1940s. Finally, the fourth section explores the CYP’s collaboration and competition with the GMD in both state and local elections for the National Assembly and Legislative and Control Yuans between 1947 and 1948.