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Control of the Kuomintang after Sun Yat-sen's Death

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

James R. Shirley
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Extract

Three years of glorious revival for the Kuomintang followed Sun Yat-sen's death on March 12, 1925. Military success in the Northern Expedition transformed the embattled Cantonese Party of 1925 into the recognized national government of China. But the same period also brought about vicious squabbles over Party authority among Sun Yat-sen's disciples. Political infighting, insubordination, outright treachery, even murder, and a bewildering variety of political shenanigans shook the Party's very foundations. At the end of those three years, Chiang Kai-shek emerged in a permanent if precarious position of control of a Kuomintang that was shot through with persistent, if sometimes disguised, hatreds.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , November 1965 , pp. 69 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1965

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References

1 Lu, Tsou, Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tang shih-lueh [Draft History of the Kuomintang] (Taipei, 1951), p. 149Google Scholar.

2 Kung-po, Chʻen, cited in Shen Yün-lung, Chung-kuo Kung-chʻan-tang chih lai-yuan [Origins of the Chinese Communist Party] (Taipei, 1959), p. 60Google Scholar.

3 The origin of the “lower-echelons” thesis is in anti-Communist discussions of 1925, arising from fears that the Communists might gain power in the KMT in the future. From this valid argument rises the invalid one that these positions gave the Communists actual control of the KMT. For examples, see Tsou, p. 158; Yang Yu-chʻiung, Chung-kuo cheng-tang shih [History of Chinese political parties] (n.p., n.d.), pp. 170–1; Shen, pp. 58–65. The most recent example is in Chʻen, Jerome, “The Left Wing Kuomintang—A Definition,” BSOAS, XXV (1962), 572–5Google Scholar.

4 On the Presidium of the Political Committee, the proportion was even smaller, with one Communist out of seven members. Kuo-fu, Chʻen, ed., Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tang ti-san-tzʻu chʻüan-kuo tai-piao ta-hui cheng-chih tsung pao-kao [General political report to the Third National Congress of the Kuomintang] (Nanking, 1929), II: “Report on the work of the Political Committee,” pp. 33–4Google Scholar.

5 “Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tang tsung-chang” [Constitution of the Kuomintang” (1924), in Chialün, Lo ed., Ko-ming-wen-hsien [Revolutionary documents] (Taipei, 1955–1962), VIII, 1138–9. Hereafter cited as KMWHGoogle Scholar.

6 KMWH, VIII, 1078–9.

7 Wu Tʻieh-chʻeng hsien-sheng hui-i lu [Memoirs of Wu Tʻieh-chʻeng] (Taipei?, 1957?), p. 71Google Scholar.

8 Cited in Chün-tu, Hsüeh, Huang Hsing and the Chinese Revolution (Stanford, 1961), p. 219 n15Google Scholar.

9 Sun carried out the entire planning for the Reorganization of 1924 without informing the Central Cadre Council, which had been established in the 1923 Constitution as the chief organ of the Party. The Council was told of Sun's plans to reorganize the Party on December 9, 1923, three weeks before the First National Congress met. Yu, George, “The Party Movement in Republican China” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of California, 1961), pp. 247–50Google Scholar.

10 Regular CEC meetings were almost impossible to hold since Sun split the CEC into regional branches. KMWH, VIII, 1161–3.

11 Chʻen Kuo-fu, II, 1.

12 Two different lists of Committee members elected at the Third Plenum in 1927 are given in Chʻen Kuo-fu, II, 33–4, and Chʻen Kuo-fu, II, “Report of the work of the National Government,” p. 4.

13 Ching-wei, Wang, “Cheng-chih pao-kao” [Political report] in Kuo-fu, Ch'en, ed., Chung-kuo Kuomin-tang ti-erh-tzʻu chʻüan-kuo tai-piao ta-hui hui-i chi-lu [Minutes of the Second National Congress of the Kuomintang] (n.p., 1926), p. 20Google Scholar.

14 Quoted in Chien-nung, Li, Chung-kuo chin-pai-nien cheng-chih-shih [Political history of China in the last hundred years] (Taipei, 1959), II, 682Google Scholar.

15 Leang-li, Tang, Inner History of the Chinese Revolution (New York, 1930), p. 205Google Scholar. I realize that Tʻang's writings contain many weaknesses, but since he was long employed by Wang Ching-wei, he had access to some privileged information. His work is extremely informative when carefully used.

16 See Chronology for May 28 in Tung-fang tsa-chih, XXII:13 (July 25, 1925), 156.

17 chung-yang chih-hsing wei-yuan-hui, Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tangchih-hsing pu, Shang-hai, Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tang ti-san-tzʻu chih-hsing wei-yuan-hui chʻüan-tʻi hui-i chüeh-i-an [Decisions of the third plenum of the Kuomintang Executive Committee] (Shanghai, June, 1925)Google Scholar.

18 Tʻang, pp. 199–200.

19 Szu-chʻeng, Mao, ed., Min-kuo shih-wu-nien i-chʻien chih Chiang Chieh-shih hsien-sheng [Chiang Kai-shek before 1926] (n.p., 1937), X, 38–9Google Scholar.

20 Mao, X. 39–44. Although Tʻang Leang-li does not relate his comments to the Swatow conference, it is important to note his evaluation of factional tendencies at that time. He says that Wang, Liao, Hsü, and Chiang all “wanted to put an end to Hu's ambitions.” Tʻang, p. 204. The official chronology in KMWH mentions a military conference at Swatow among Liao, Chiang and Hsü, but does not indicate the presence there of Wang or Chu; it also gives May 15 as the only date of the conference. KMWH, XI, p. 1773.

21 Conversation with Li Huang, Hong Kong, 1960.

22 Mao, VIII, 6–7.

23 Tʻang, p. 202.

24 The issue of these two plenary sessions is obscure. The official Party chronology states that the CEC opened a “plenum” in Canton on June 15, although the term used is not the usual “chʻüanʻtiʻi hui-i” but “chʻüan-tʻi ta-hui,” a term that is not used to describe a Party Plenum anywhere else in the chronology. It does not mention the Party Plenum at Peking in May, although the KMWH documents include a portion of the Peking manifesto, correctly identified as issued by the “Third Plenum” (chʻüantʻi hui-i), and dated May 24, 1925. KMWH XI, 1693–7; 1773–4. Mao Szu-chʻeng explicitly called the June 15 meeting at Canton a Party Plenum. Mao, X, 94. Tʻang Leang-li called it the Third Plenum of the CEC, and did not mention the Peking meeting. He dated the Canton meeting two days earlier than the official chronology, on June 13. Tʻang, p. 204. Chʻien Tuan-sheng did not mention either plenum; in his account the Political Committee resolved these questions on June 14. Tuan-sheng, Chʻien et al. , Min-kuo cheng-chih shih [Political History of the Republic] (Changsha, 1939), p. 167Google Scholar. Most secondary sources either ignore the issue altogether or follow Li Chien-nung in stating that the decisions were made “by the CEC.” Li, II, 683.

25 Lu, Tsou, Hui-kp-lu [Memoirs] (Nanking, 1947), I, 168–9Google Scholar.

26 Wang, “Cheng-chih pao-kao,” quoted in Li, II, 682.

27 Shen, p. 62.