The Second United Front ( zh, t=第二次國共合作 , s=第二次国共合作 , first=t ) was the alliance between the ruling

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

(KMT) and the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

(CCP) to resist the Japanese invasion of China during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

, which suspended the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...

from 1937 to 1945.

Background

In 1927 the Chinese Communists retaliated against Kuomintang following a betrayal of its members in Shanghai by National Revolutionary Army commander Chiang Kai-shek, which marked the end of the KMT's four-year alliance with the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and its cooperation with the CCP during the

Northern Expedition The Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the "Chinese Nationalist Party", against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. The ...

(aka

First United Front The First United Front (; alternatively ), 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 Revo ...

) to defeat warlords and unify China. In 1931 the Japanese launched its

invasion An invasion is a Offensive (military), military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitics, geopolitical Legal entity, entity aggressively enter territory (country subdivision), territory owned by another such entity, gen ...

and subsequent

occupation Occupation commonly refers to: *Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment *Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces *Military occupation, th ...

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...

. Chiang Kai-shek, who ''de facto'' led the central government of China, decided that China must avoid all-out war with Japan due to domestic turmoil and inadequate preparation. Therefore, he "pursued a strategy of appeasing Japan while struggling for real national unity and over time sufficient strength to confront the Imperial army. This appeasement policy lasted for another six years". Even though his campaigns against the Communists resulted in their retreat and a 90% reduction in their fighting strength, he was unable to eliminate their forces entirely, and his policy of "internal pacification before external resistance" (:) was very unpopular with the Chinese populace, which caused widespread resentment and demonstration against the ruling KMT leadership and its regional warlord allies.

Xi'an Incident

In 1936, Chiang Kai-shek assigned "The Young Marshal"

Zhang Xueliang Chang Hsüeh-liang (, June 3, 1901 – October 15, 2001), also romanized as Zhang Xueliang, nicknamed the "Young Marshal" (少帥), known in his later life as Peter H. L. Chang, was the effective ruler of Northeast China and much of northern ...

, leader of

Northeastern Army The Northeastern Army (), was the Chinese army of the Fengtien clique until the unification of China in 1928. From 1931 to 1933 it faced the Japanese forces in northeast China, Jehol and Hebei, in the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese War. ...

, the duty of suppressing the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

of the CCP. Battles with the Red Army resulted in great casualties for Zhang's forces, but Chiang Kai-shek did not provide any support to his troops. On 12 December 1936, a deeply disgruntled Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in

Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by other names, is the capital of Shaanxi Province. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong Plain, the city is the third most populous city in Western China, after Chongqi ...

to force an end to the conflict between KMT and CCP. To secure the release of Chiang, the KMT was forced to agree to a temporary end to the

and the forming of a united front between the CCP and KMT against Japan on 24 December 1936. However, by the time Chiang arrived in Xi'an on 4 December 1936, negotiations for a united front had been in the works for two years. The China Democratic League, an umbrella organization for three political parties and three political pressure groups, also agreed to take part in the united front formed by KMT and the CCP.

Cooperation during the War of Resistance

As a result of the truce between KMT and CCP, the Red Army was reorganized into the

New Fourth Army The New Fourth Army () was a unit of the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China established in 1937. In contrast to most of the National Revolutionary Army, it was controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and not by the ruling Ku ...

and the 8th Route Army, which were placed under the command of the National Revolutionary Army. The CCP agreed to accept the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, and began to receive some financial support from the

central government A central government is the government that is a controlling power over a unitary state. Another distinct but sovereign political entity is a federal government, which may have distinct powers at various levels of government, authorized or dele ...

run by KMT. In agreement with KMT

Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Shaan–Gan–Ning or in postal romanization Shen–Kan–Ning () was a historical proto-state that was formed in 1937 by the Chinese Communist Party following the collapse of the Chinese Soviet Republic in agreement with the Kuomintang as a part ...

and

Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region The Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region () was an area under the control of the Chinese Communist Party during the time of the Chinese Communist Revolution. After their success in the Battle of Pingxingguan in September 1937, in October 1937, the 115th Di ...

were created. They were controlled by the CCP. After the commencement of full-scale war between China and Japan, the Communists forces fought in alliance with the KMT forces during the

Battle of Taiyuan The Japanese offensive called 太原作戦 or the Battle of Taiyuan was a major battle fought in 1937 between China and Japan named for Taiyuan (the capital of Shanxi province), which lay in the 2nd Military Region. The battle concluded in a v ...

, and the high point of their cooperation came in 1938 during the Battle of Wuhan. However, the Communists submission to the

chain of command A command hierarchy is a group of people who carry out orders based on others' authority within the group. It can be viewed as part of a power structure, in which it is usually seen as the most vulnerable and also the most powerful part. Milit ...

of the National Revolutionary Army was in name only. The Communists acted independently and hardly ever engaged the Japanese in conventional battles. The level of actual coordination between the CCP and KMT during the Second Sino-Japanese War was minimal.Buss, Claude Albert. (1972). Stanford Alumni Association. The People's Republic of China and Richard Nixon. United States.

Breakdown and aftermath

In the midst of the Second United Front, the Communists and the Kuomintang were still vying for territorial advantage in "Free China" (i.e. those areas not occupied by the Japanese or ruled by puppet governments). The uneasy alliance began to break down by late 1938 as a result of the Communists' efforts to aggressively expand their military strength through absorbing Chinese guerrilla forces behind enemy lines. For Chinese militia who refused to switch their allegiance, the CCP would call them "collaborators" and then attack to eliminate their forces. For example, the Red Army led by

He Long He Long (; March 22, 1896 – June 9, 1969) 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 ...

attacked and wiped out a brigade of Chinese militia led by Zhang Yin-wu in

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and 0 ...

in June, 1939. In December 1940, Chiang Kai-shek demanded that the CCP's

evacuate

Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...

and

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its ca ...

Provinces. Despite the intense pressure, the New Fourth Army commanders committed insubordination by marching in an unauthorized direction and also missed the deadline to evacuate. Added to this were the attacks by the Communist Party on the Kuomintang Forces in Hebei in August 1939 and in Jiangsu in October 1940, so they were ambushed and defeated by Nationalist troops in January 1941. This clash, which would be known as the

New Fourth Army Incident The New Fourth Army Incident (), also known as the South Anhui Incident (), occurred in China in January 1941 during the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which the Chinese Civil War was in theory suspended, uniting the Communists and Nationalist ...

, weakened but didn't end the CCP position in Central China and effectively ended any substantive co-operation between the Nationalists and the Communists and both sides concentrated on jockeying for position in the inevitable Civil War.Schoppa, R. Keith. (2000). The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History. Columbia University Press. . It also ended the Second United Front formed earlier to fight the Japanese.Schoppa, R. Keith. (2000). The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History. Columbia University Press. . p. 160 Afterwards, within the Japanese occupied provinces and behind enemy lines the KMT and CCP forces carried on warfare with each other, with the Communists eventually destroying or absorbing the KMT partisan forces or driving them into the puppet forces of the Japanese. The communists under the leadership of

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

also began to focus most of their energy on building up their sphere of influence wherever opportunities were presented, mainly through rural mass organizations, administrative,

land Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of the planet Earth that is not submerged by the ocean or other bodies of water. It makes up 29% of Earth's surface and includes the continents and various isla ...

and

tax A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...

reform measures favoring poor

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasant ...

s; while the KMT allocated many divisions of its regular army to carry out military blockade of the CCP areas in an attempt to neutralize the spread of Communist influence until the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

After 1945

After the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong attempted to engage in peace talks. This effort failed and by 1946 the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party were engaged in all-out civil war. The Communists were able to obtain seized Japanese Army weapons in the Northeast – with Soviet acquiesce – and took the opportunity to engage the already weakened KMT. In October 1949, Mao established the People's Republic of China, while Chiang retreated to the island of Taiwan.

References

Citations

Sources

''Resistance and Revolution in China''
* {{Chinese Civil War 1930s in China 1940s in China China in World War II Chinese Civil War Defunct left-wing political party alliances National Revolutionary Army Political party alliances in China Second Sino-Japanese War History of the Chinese Communist Party United Front (China)