Whampoa Military Academy purge

Last updated

The Whampoa Military Academy purge occurred in 1927 as part of Chiang Kai-shek's wider purge of Chinese Communist Party supporters from the ruling Kuomintang and its National Revolutionary Army.

Contents

The Kuomintang's purge of the Whampoa Military Academy cadet corps took place three days after the anti-communist massacre in Shanghai. The Whampoa students were ordered to identify fellow students as communists. The students separated out as communists were arrested and taken to the Nanshitou concentration camp.

History

The Whampoa Academy purge occurred on the morning of 15 April 1927. The students were surrounded by armed troops upon reaching the academy's athletic field for morning exercise and told that they would be separated and taught different curricula if they were communists. [1]

With the exception of one student suffering from mental problems, no students stepped forward to identify themselves as communists, but the cadet commander announced that everybody's political views were known and the students were ordered to identify the communists in their ranks. [1] The students separated out as communists were arrested and taken to the Nanshitou concentration camp when the remaining cadets were taken to their dormitories. [1]

Communist Party USA chairman Earl Browder visited China in 1927 with the International Workers' Delegation, a delegation composed of himself, Tom Mann, Jacques Doriot, and Sydor Stoler. Shortly after returning home, Browder published the book Civil War in Nationalist China. In section two of the first chapter, he recounts the growing divisions within the Kuomintang government and its attempts to hide them from the delegation. In particular, he recounts his visit to the Whampoa Military Academy just weeks before the purge. He writes:

Within the army, there was established at the end of 1926 a political department for the purpose of educating the soldiers in the principles of the Kuomintang, and also for carrying on mass propaganda among the population of the new territories being occupied by the nationalist armies. The workers in this political department had in the course of their work developed into quite a solid left wing, against the compromising and reactionary policies of the right wing. It was this department which arranged great mass demonstrations for us at Whampoa Political-Military Academy. It was quite evident to us that these demonstrations, at which the soldiers and cadets sang the International and shouted such slogans as "Long Live the World Revolution," were not at all to the taste of the staff officers of the army present in Canton. During our presence in Canton, however, these higher officers merely smiled and smiled and spoke fair words. But five weeks after our departure from Canton, they arrested most of the workers of the political department and blew out their brains. [2]

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 Wakeman 2003 , pp. 28–30.
  2. Browder, Earl (1927). Civil War in Nationalist China (PDF). Chicago: Labor Unity Publishing Association. p. 12.

Related Research Articles

Kuomintang Political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan)

The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD) or the Chinese Nationalist Party, is a major political party in the Republic of China throughout its historical periods in both the Chinese mainland as well as Taiwan. It was the dominant ruling party of the Republic of China on the mainland from 1928 to 1949. The party was then forced to exile from the mainland due to its defeat in the Chinese Civil War, but retained its authoritarian rule over Taiwan under the Dang Guo system until democratic reforms were enacted in the 1990s. In Taiwanese politics, the KMT is the dominant party in the Pan-Blue Coalition and primarily competes with the rival Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), it is currently the largest opposition party in the Legislative Yuan. The current chairman is Eric Chu.

Zhou Enlai 1st Premier of the Peoples Republic of China from 1949 to 1976

Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China serving from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Mao Zedong and helped the Communist Party rise to power, later helping consolidate its control, form its foreign policy, and develop the Chinese economy.

Xian Incident Political crisis in China

The Xi'an Incident, also spelled as Sian Incident was a political crisis that took place in Sian, Shensi in 1936. Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist government of China, was detained by his subordinates Generals Chang Hsüeh-liang and Yang Hucheng, in order to force the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party to change its policies regarding the Empire of Japan and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Xu Xiangqian Chinese marshal

Xu Xiangqian was a Chinese Communist military leader and one of the Ten Marshals of the People's Liberation Army. He was the son of a wealthy landowner, but joined the Kuomintang's National Revolutionary Army, against his parents' wishes, in 1924. When the Kuomintang (KMT) began to fight the Communists (CPC) in 1927, Xu left Chiang's forces and led a Communist army based in Sichuan under the political authority of Zhang Guotao. After Zhang defected to the KMT in the early 1930s, Xu survived politically and rejoined the Red Army, in a less senior position, under the leadership of Mao Zedong.

Republic of China Military Academy Military academy of the Republic of China

The Republic of China Military Academy is the service academy for the army of the Republic of China, located in Fengshan District, Kaohsiung. Previously known as the Whampoa Military Academy, the military academy produced commanders who fought in many of China's conflicts in the 20th century, notably the Northern Expedition, the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War.

The 28 Bolsheviks (二十八个半布尔什维克) were a group of Chinese students who studied at the Moscow Sun Yat-sen University from the late 1920s until early 1935, also known as the "Returned Students". The university was founded in 1925 as a result of Kuomintang's founder Sun Yat-Sen's policy of alliance with the Soviet Union, and was named after him. The university had an important influence on modern Chinese history by educating many prominent Chinese political figures. The most famous of these were collectively called the 28 Bolsheviks.

He Long

He Long was a Chinese Communist revolutionary and one of the ten marshals of the People's Liberation Army. He was from a poor rural family in Hunan, and his family was not able to provide him with any formal education. He began his revolutionary career after avenging the death of his uncle, when he fled to become an outlaw and attracted a small personal army around him. Later his forces joined the Kuomintang, and he participated in the Northern Expedition.

Guangzhou Uprising 1927 Communist riots in southern China

The Guangzhou Uprising, Canton Uprising or Canton Riots of 1927 was a failed communist uprising in the city of Guangzhou (Canton) in southern China.

Blue Shirts Society Chinese Nationalist Party faction modeled after Italian fascism

The Blue Shirts Society (藍衣社), also known as the Society of Practice of the Three Principles of the People, the Spirit Encouragement Society and the China Reconstruction Society, was a secret ultranationalist faction that modeled Italian fascists in the Kuomintang.

First United Front 1924-27 military alliance between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang

The First United Front, also known as the KMT–CCP Alliance, of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was formed in 1924 as an alliance to end warlordism in China. Together they formed the National Revolutionary Army and set out in 1926 on the Northern Expedition. The CCP joined the KMT as individuals, making use of KMT's superiority in numbers to help spread communism. The KMT, on the other hand, wanted to control the communists from within. Both parties had their own aims and the Front was unsustainable. In 1927, KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek purged the Communists from the Front while the Northern Expedition was still half-complete. This initiated a civil war between the two parties that lasted until the Second United Front was formed in 1936 to prepare for the coming Second Sino-Japanese War.

Shanghai massacre 1927 execution of Chinese Communist Party members by the Kuomintang in Shanghai

The Shanghai massacre of 12 April 1927, the April 12 Purge or the April 12 Incident as it is commonly known in China, was the violent suppression of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organizations and leftist elements in Shanghai by forces supporting General Chiang Kai-shek and conservative factions in the Kuomintang. Following the incident, conservative KMT elements carried out a full-scale purge of Communists in all areas under their control, and violent suppression occurred in Guangzhou and Changsha. The purge led to an open split between left and right wing factions in the KMT, with Chiang Kai-shek establishing himself as the leader of the right wing faction based in Nanjing, in opposition to the original left-wing KMT government based in Wuhan led by Wang Jingwei.

Canton Coup

The Canton Coup of 20 March 1926, also known as the Zhongshan Incident or the March 20th Incident, was a purge of Communist elements of the Nationalist army in Guangzhou undertaken by Chiang Kai-shek. The incident solidified Chiang's power immediately before the successful Northern Expedition, turning him into the paramount leader of the country.

Guan Linzheng

Guan Linzheng was a highly successful Chinese general in the Kuomintang who fought against both the Communists and the Imperial Japanese Army, and was a recipient of Order of Blue Sky and White Sun, the highest honor for a Chinese Nationalist commander.

Fan Hanjie

Fan Hanjie, courtesy name Jie-ying, was a Chinese military general who served during the Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War. During the Liaoshen Campaign he served as the deputy commander-in-chief of Manchuria and director of the command center in Jinzhou with the rank of lieutenant general in the National Revolutionary Army.

The former socialist ideology of the Kuomintang is a form of socialism and socialist thought developed in mainland China during the early Republic of China. The Tongmenghui revolutionary organization led by Sun Yat-sen was the first to promote socialism in China.

Li Jishen Chinese politician

Li Jishen or Li Chi-shen was a Chinese military officer and politician, general of the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China, Vice Chairman of the People's Republic of China (1949–1954), Vice Chairman of the National People's Congress (1954–1959), Vice Chairman the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (1949–1959) and founder and first Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang (1948–1959).

Deng Yanda

Deng Yanda was a military officer in the Chinese Nationalist Party. He broke with party leaders in 1927, denouncing them as traitors to the party's original principles and in 1930 attempted to form a new party, which he called the Provisional Action Committee of the Chinese Nationalist Party or Third Party. It was later renamed the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party. In 1931 he was convicted of treason by the Nationalist government and secretly executed. Today, Deng is recognized as a revolutionary martyr by the People's Republic of China.

Aleksandr Cherepanov

Aleksandr Ivanovich Cherepanov was a Soviet military leader and lieutenant general of the Red Army.

Yun Daiying

Yun Daiying was an early leader of the Communist Party of China.

Wuhan Nationalist government 1927 political split between leftist KMT government in Wuhan and KMT rightist government in Nanjing

The Wuhan Nationalist government, also known as the Wuhan government, Wuhan regime, or Hankow government, was a government dominated by the left-wing of the Nationalist or Kuomintang (KMT) Party of China that was based in Wuhan from 5 December 1926 to 21 September 1927, led first by Eugene Chen, and later by Wang Jingwei.

References