How Did Communism Start In China? | The War That Changed The World | Timeline

hi everybody and welcome to this documentary on timeline my name is dan snow and i want to tell you about history hit tv it's like the netflix for history hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians we've got an exclusive offer available to fans of timeline if you go to history hit tv you can either follow the information below this video or just google history hit tv and use the code timeline you get a special introductory offer go and check it out in the meantime enjoy this video [Music] the enormity of total war is expressed in terms of the destruction of life land and property by the narratives of attack and defense victory and defeat but the effect of war the impact on nations borders politics and population is another story and that story viewed from the 21st century suggests that the most influential battlefield of the second world war was not europe or the middle east north africa or the pacific it was the oriental battlefield it was china where war raged for years longer than anywhere else a war that caused suffering on a scale and often of a brutality that it is almost impossible to comprehend caused more casualties than anywhere else and was the war that changed the world the british began the first opium war in 1840 and initiated what the chinese themselves call a hundred years of humiliation which climaxed on the 18th of september 1931 when japanese troops stationed in northern china under unequal treaties launched their invasion of the region of north eastern china known as manchuria [Music] that invasion became the war which did not end until the defeat of imperial japan in 1945 14 years of pain and ruin and yet in 1972 chairman mao zedong was not entirely joking when he asked tanaka kakue the visiting japanese prime minister whether he should thank him for the invasion because it had inspired china's national awakening and changed the destiny of china this story explains how the world knows that in a rich history stretching back thousands of years imperial china enjoyed a highly developed society [Music] so many of the ordinary things of our daily lives originated in imperial china from a postal service to paper money from porcelain to gunpowder from tea to silk and yet it was europe that invented the modern world in 1793 britain dispatched one more mission hopeful of encouraging china to open its borders to trade lord mccartney took 600 packages of gifts from his monarch the king of the red-haired people of england the chinese said their emperor's reply was i set no value on strange or ingenious objects and have no use for your country's manufactures the fate of imperial china was sealed by 1931 almost 150 years later imperialist pressure foreign troops and colonialist gun boats had changed china unequal treaties forced the chinese to grant concessions and there were international settlements where british french german russian american and others lived after thousands of years the last imperial dynasty fell and for 20 years a turbulent china struggled to establish an effective republican government [Music] into this turmoil stepped an asian country that had not made the mistake that china made when faced by lord mccartney [Music] japan's response to demands that had opened itself to trade was to embrace the necessity and modernize in a rush beneath the slogan fukoku kyoge enrich the state strengthen the military [Music] in little over 70 years it had remade itself as a significant modern military power [Music] what japan needed was room for its people and resources that were so lacking in its home islands it turned itself into a colonial power the ryukyu islands the chinese island of taiwan and the korean peninsula had been taken and japanese eyes were firmly on china [Music] on the 18th of september 1931 japanese troops deliberately fabricated an incident that they used as a reason for taking over the whole of the northeastern region japanese troops are steadily advancing into manchuria and occupying towns and villages a population prayed upon by bended overlords and baptized in military brigandage crowds the highways and attempts to flee the japanese renamed manchuria manchukuo and set up a puppet regime installing the last emperor of china as its nominal ruler and defying the sanctions of the league of nations china has long been terrific in her international duties as a sovereign state and japan as her nearest neighbor has been the greatest sufferer on that store i asked you not to adopt this people for the sake of peace in the far east and for the sage of the invasion of manchuria in 1931 was the beginning of what china calls the war of resistance against japanese aggression we cannot understand the course of a war that was according to official government figures to claim 35 million chinese lives and be the anvil on which the new china was forged without understanding both the physical and the political landscape that the fighting was to so transform china's natural wealth was then limited to the east and central parts of the country the fertile river valleys and the hinterland of its great trading ports this is the china that in the war ahead would suffer most from invasion and destruction china's landscape is vast and diverse as is its population 400 million when japan made her move a population made up of 56 nationalities when japan advanced more than 80 percent of that population comprised rural peasantry substantially illiterate [Music] after full-scale war had started in 1937 a traveler entered a village near beijing to warn of the japanese advanced the villagers knew nothing of the japanese they did not even know that the imperial dynasty had fallen many years earlier [Music] this was the china that was drawn into conflict from 1931 to 1945. [Music] the two great asian powers had already fought each other the first sino-japanese war of 1894-5 had been short and decisive a japanese victory that had cost china numerous concessions including taiwan and the pescadores the history of the chinese emperors is patchy but it is a coherent history and the fall of the emperor which followed defeat in the first sino-japanese war was bound to usher in a period of trial and error it started when dr sun yatsen declared a republic he was soon chased out by iwan shikai a warlord who fancied making himself the new emperor but then juwan died and dr sun returned from exile in japan but then sun died [Music] by the time the japanese invaded manchuria sun's successor at the head of the nationalists the kuwamin tang was head of the government his name was chiang kai-shek and his hold on government depended on alliances and accommodations with factions and warlords and on his being able to suppress the rising chinese communist party which had in 1921 opened its first congress in the house of two party members [Music] these were years in which those looking for proof that the weak could rise up and overthrow the privileged and corrupt had somewhere to look they could look to soviet russia and they did they looked at propaganda from the factories and the collective farms they looked at the parades and smiling faces and they believed [Music] one who read voraciously would absorb and then transform the theory behind the communist revolution was the son of a peasant from hunan province his name was mao zedong and the story of how the war in china changed the world is also the story of how it transformed a supporting player in a minor political movement into one of the most influential politicians of the 20th century from 1924 the communist party worked with and within the nationalist party this so-called united front was torn apart when chiang kai-shek's faction moved to suppress rising communist influence by 1934 the party and the main part of its army had been driven into a retreat from the encirclement and violent opposition of the nationalists this retreat to a remote part of the country is known to history as the long march the march took some of those involved as much as two years covered more than 12 000 kilometers and went through some of the least hospitable terrain in china [Music] a main force reported at 130 000 broke out of the nationalist encirclement they went west then north between 25 and 30 000 people completed the journey they reached shanxi province finally establishing in yanan the base that was to become famous red yanan where the party could take stock and build the strength of its army [Music] as historian mark selden has pointed out the long march had not brought the surviving faithful to the promised land it had rather as soothly education commissioner in the communist administration told the american journalist edgar snow brought them to one of the darkest places on earth [Music] yanan's remote and rugged character would be a benefit here experiments could be conducted in education culture military tactics land reform a government in waiting could develop and test its theories [Music] and emerging at the head of that government was mao zedong who called the march the phenomenon of the great strategic shift mao had been elected chairman of the chinese soviet republic in 1931 from that time he would always be known as mao chusi chairman mao less than three months after setting off on the march he formally joined the polit bureau of the chinese communist party and entered both its political and military corps leadership he would become chairman of the party's politburo and secretariat and remain in chanchi until 1947 two years after the war of resistance ended he had been there for 13 years the story of the war of battles won and lost guerrilla tactics and fearful suffering runs parallel in our narrative to the story of janam the years of experiment of consolidation of power of the development and promotion of policies and philosophies that became known as mao zedong thought [Music] it is these two narratives together that describe the war that changed the world and tell us why it did the full-scale war started a year after the end of the long march in 1937 when the communist party's hopes of ever ruling china were virtually new [Music] japanese military activity had not ended with the invasion of manchuria but chiang kai-shek with a very realistic appraisal of the great gulf between chinese and japanese war readiness and a commitment to defeating internal bandits by which he meant the communist party before turning to external ones compromised and withdrew behind the slogan resist foreign aggression after stabilizing the country many in manchuria disagreed with chang and the armies of the northeast comprising elements from every part of the society including the people's revolutionary army continued the fight against japan mao zedong was one who saw things differently he told edgar snow we cannot even discuss communism if we are robbed of a country in which to practice it the first of what was to be the almost endless stream of essays lectures and editorials flowing from his brush in yanam demanded action proposing the idea of a united front under the slogan resist japan and save the nation on september 1 1936 the party's central committee issued a directive on forcing chiang kai-shek to face the japanese its official slogan resist japan and oppose qiang was under instructions from the politburo changed to compel chiang kai-shek to resist japan in november forces from inner mongolia supported by japanese aircraft tanks and artillery cut the beijing swine road exposing the provinces of shanxi and shanxi to japanese advance against this background in december chang went to xi'an to plan what he said would be the last five minutes of the bandit suppression campaign meaning his campaign to destroy his communist opponents by military action he was arrested by two of his own generals zhang shui young and yang hucheng who had become frustrated by their failure to persuade him to focus on the japanese invader instead of the communist party which said the whole world rejoices about the arrest of the mother of all criminals the solution to what has become known as the xi'an incident was reached on christmas eve mao had decided that unity was the only way to resist the enemy and sent cho and lai to negotiate a settlement the result was the establishment of a second united front which the communist party had been proposing in speeches as far back as 1931 and which they offered to chiang in a telegram in 1937 so it was agreed that all parties would unite against the japanese for six months the united front held and it may be that this was enough to persuade fiery elements within the japanese army of occupation that they had better move quickly an increase in the tempo of events occurred just outside beijing they ping as it was then called at a landmark whose beauty had been praised by marco polo which is why the lugocho incident is best known as the incident at the marco polo bridge it was july the 7th 1937 [Music] japanese troops stationed to protect the railway line were on maneuvers [Music] shots were fired the japanese commander claimed that one of his men was missing and demanded the right to search for him which the local chinese commander refused [Music] and both sides faced the same choice to pull back or to escalate chiang kai-shek asked in his diary is this the time to accept the challenge a counter blow would not be easy in a region that was according to historian hans van de a frontier populated by private armies chang ordered a general state of alert to prepare for resistance the japanese government sent reinforcements to china within two weeks the japanese had begun their advance it would become the full-scale invasion designed to settle what the japanese who never declared war on china called the north china incident both the communists and nationalists reacted quickly after the marco polo bridge incident on july the 8th the chinese communist party issued a public telegraph stating that only by united resistance could china find its way out it called on all chinese people armies and governments to unite together to build a great wall of an anti-japanese invasion united front on july 15th the party delivered the declaration of the central committee of the communist party of china to chiang kai-shek and on the 17th chang made a speech pointing out that the marco polo incident leaves no chance of making compromises if we give up an inch of sovereignty or land we would be sinners to all chinese people he said that we have hopes of solving the marco polo incident in a peaceful and diplomatic way but added if the war breaks out then there is no difference between south or north between old and young between anyone war broke out the japanese offensive began on july 26th beijing fell after two days and chiang jing two days after that when the help he expected from britain or america failed to materialize the options available to chiang kai-shek as commander-in-chief did not include doing nothing [Music] the xi'an agreement his position his popularity which was high and the reality of japan's advance on a north-south axis threatening his capital of nanjing also known as nan king demanded a response on july 31st he said since all hope for peace has been lost all we can do now is resist to the bitter end the communist party announced that all armies in the country including the red army support mr chiang kai-shek's declaration of the red army american journalist anna louise strong noted that most of the new recruits like most chinese peasants were illiterate but she said they were immediately taught to read and write chang knew perfectly well that china was militarily outgunned he estimated closing the gap with japan would take some years he hoped that he could absorb japanese aggression using the scale of china's land and population he called it trading space for time and that he could hold the japanese advance for long enough to relocate the government and crucial industries to safety in china's vast interior [Music] he told the army that japan wants a quick victory in a short war we must therefore fight a protracted war of attrition [Music] he decided to meet the japanese advance in shanghai [Music] on august the 13th 1937 small arms fire was heard in outer suburbs it was about nine in the morning the battle for shanghai had begun it would last for over three months seven hundred thousand chinese and a little less than half that number of japanese would be deployed [Music] but the japanese deficiency and manpower was compensated for elsewhere 3 000 japanese aircraft flew above the battle 250 chinese planes contested the skies 130 ships from the world's third most powerful navy lent support they were faced by a navy which as one historian noted was incapable of stopping smugglers there were more than 280 000 chinese casualties less than 100 000 japanese a chinese unit diary recorded intense japanese artillery fire as if it would level the mountains and wipe out the sea shanghai falls in desolation after weeks of bombardment again and again japanese infantry stormed the warehouse with rifles and machine guns but still the suicide battalion fights on its heroism admired by the work in late october chinese forces began their withdrawal from the centre of shanghai they had bought time allowed for the removal of government and some industry but the cost was high not just the casualties but the destruction of much of shanghai a preview of japanese tactics that included indiscriminate bombing and the use of gas the loss of the very best of nationalist chinese units chang having decided to commit his elite divisions to the battle and the laying open of the road to nanjing on which the japanese now advanced towards a famously murderous bloodbath in october 1937 the world's great powers gathered to discuss china's plight the nine power treaty conference in brussels but the world was distracted by the rise of fascist dictators in germany and italy and a civil war in spain in which those same dictators were playing a role german aircraft experimented with bombing techniques famously at guernica brutality on every side tore spain apart for three years and the international community was impotent the nine power treaty conference met for the last time on november the 24th just two days before the official end of the battle for shanghai the conference adjourned indefinitely and the international community was impotent it displayed again the timidity it had demonstrated when italy had marched boldly into ethiopia and defied the league of nations calls for it to withdraw [Music] during the battle for nanjing a chinese officer recorded in his unit's diary our artillery pieces were fired so intensely that their barrels were damaged one or two exploded it is difficult to win battles with weapons like that the nationalist capital of nanjing fell to the invader on december the 13th [Music] for six weeks the streets of the capital belonged to the troops of the imperial japanese army [Music] the exact death toll can never be known three hundred thousand is the number given in the post-war trial of those responsible for an atrocity which some continue to deny [Music] the dead were thrown into pits the living were buried alive the tortured and murdered were hurled into the river mutilated bodies were burned prisoners of war were killed civilians were killed [Music] women were raped and disfigured [Music] tens of thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands such mayhem could not have occurred it could certainly not have occurred in the japanese army without approval from the chain of command after the war a japanese officer in a testament in which he admitted to his role in numerous atrocities wrote in times of peace these acts would be totally unthinkable and inhuman but in the strange environment of the battlefield they are easy japan launched wars she could not win japan was small and under-resourced she may have been more advanced than other asian states but on a global scale she was at best emerging her dreams of conquest and expansion cost her more than 50 percent of the national budget spent on the military a figure that rose to 70 before the war ended [Music] japan's hopes of victory lay not in conquest but in surrender enforcing the enemy into submission or at least peace talks japan would use what tactics she could to force the issue and terror unleashed on the population in the form of indiscriminate bombing slaughter chemical weapons was an obvious tactic in the last months of 1937 following the fall of nanjing the almost unopposed japanese air force bombed more than 50 chinese towns and cities in nine provinces many of the targets completely devoid of any tactical value [Music] but china did not sue for peace when in january 1938 the chairman and vice general commanding shandong province abandoned his post in the face of the enemy he was arrested tried made to kneel and shot in the back of the head by a fellow general [Applause] japan expecting victory within six months the more optimistic it suggested three months was trapped in a long war without a strategy stalemated in china she would in the years ahead gamble dangerously on the greater east asia co-prosperity sphere and failed disastrously but that was years away [Music] shanxi province may have been far from the sound of the guns but it too was at war with japan and in 1938 mao zedong would deliver a series of lectures that defined the communist party's approach to the war and became a bible for those who in the post-war years fought guerrilla and revolutionary campaigns as early as 1935 mal had written that japanese imperialism wants to turn china into a colony he developed his thoughts in lectures he gave at the red army college which was later renamed the anti-japanese military and political university oppose fixed battle lines he wrote favor fluid battle lines oppose the principle of maintaining one large rear area and uphold the principle of small rear areas on august 22nd 1937 the communist party's central committee held an enlarged politburo meeting at which it set out the policy that distinguished it from the guomin tang the policy of a united front involving all the ethnic groups in china [Music] in may of 1938 mao would deliver the lectures on protracted war and problems of war and strategy in protracted war he said the mobilization of the people throughout the country will create a vast sea in which to drown the enemy and he saw the most practical path to mobilization launch guerrilla warfare in the rear of the enemy he said and so secure overwhelming local superiority in problems of war he used a line that he had first used a decade earlier and that later generations of maoist thinkers would quote political power comes out of the barrel of a gun by the time the lectures were delivered chinese forces had enjoyed some success against the invasion notably at ping ching one and tayashwan in 1937 the red army had been reorganized and renamed becoming part of the nationalist army's order of battle the main force of 46 000 it would grow enormously during the war became the eighth route army other guerrilla units in the south were formed into the new fourth army with an initial strength of ten thousand by 1945 there were more than a million soldiers in the eighth route army and the population of the area they controlled had grown from one and a half million to almost a hundred million pings was an eighth route army ambush which trapped and destroyed a japanese supply convoy in a deep gully it was not a major battle or militarily significant but it was a win it boosted morale and showed that the japanese were not invincible you deserve praise and congratulations said chiang kai-shek the commander-in-chief [Music] thai schwann fought at the beginning of april 1938 was a battle of a different order there is an old railway station at tayashwan where the hands of the clock rest permanently at 12 20 the hour of the battle elements of the new fourth army engaged the itagaki division of the imperial japanese army one chinese estimate states that 11 000 japanese were lost and acknowledges seven and a half thousand casualties on its side other figures are lower some higher as many as fifteen to twenty thousand casualties on each side for taya juan as for much else in the china theatre it is difficult to find agreement on the data what is not in dispute is that some of the casualties were victims of weapons forbidden under the geneva convention to which japan was signatory the enemy in the fanshawe district wrote liu binghwan a nationalist officer is using massive amounts of poison gas to conceal their actions the japanese referred to the gas as special smoke victory at taishwan did not stem the japanese advance and it did not dwell long in the consciousness of the world exactly a week after taj won the world's attention was distracted by the anschluss germany's annexation of austria germany these pictures will perhaps stir emotions in some of you which you may find it hard to repress but sit through them calmly they will teach us something they will illustrate the seriousness of the times in which we live and they will reinforce our determination to meet the difficulties of our world with courage approved by 99 of the population of austria in a referendum the annexation erased from the map a nation that had for centuries been the seat of power in central europe it was not hitler's first territorial gain it would not be his last the following month mao delivered his unprotracted war lectures the war between china and japan is not just any war mao said it is specifically a war of life and death between semi-colonial and semi-feudal china and imperialist japan [Music] mao correctly anticipated japan spreading into the greater part of chinese territory south of the great wall but he also saw that the enemy can actually hold only the big cities the main lines of communication while the greater part will be taken up by the guerrilla areas the nature of japan's occupation restricted by the size of her army and the scale of chinese territory has become known as points and lines japan occupied strategic points and the lines of communication especially the railroads that linked them which left vast areas of hostile territory where mainly communist forces established bases and conducted guerrilla operations chinese historians call these areas the backstage battlefield [Music] following the loss of nanjing chang temporarily relocated as capital to wuhan and this city now came under pressure on june the 9th chiang kai-shek issued an order designed to slow the japanese advance he ordered the dike holding the yellow river at hua yuan to be breached and three hundred thousand square kilometers of his country to be flooded no warning was given it would have alerted the japanese to the plan he succeeded in briefly impeding the japanese advance in an action that caused many deaths how many they're too familiar with death and tragedy in china the numbers are never reliant perhaps 800 000 [Music] the nationalist government withdrew from wuhan to establish itself in a place the only real appeal of which was that it was as out of the way as a capital city could be chongqing japan by now was in possession of probably more than it expected and all that it wanted it had the greater part of the fertile eastern and northern regions of china in addition to the north east which it had already colonized it enjoyed control of all the major cities and excellent ports by the time it occupied hainan island in february of 39 it would be in a position to enforce a naval blockade of the whole country leaders of the chinese united front predicted a war in three parts the defensive the strategic stalemate the counter offence by this definition mao zedong's analysis of protracted war the conflict was entering the stalemate stage the stalemate was perhaps a pause as people waited to see how things would develop in europe where great powers had rolled over in the face of hitler's threats and sacrificed czechoslovakia at munich within the fire house the camera is present to record for the waiting world and for posterity the scenes of deliberation there is no large long table with chairman and rules of procedure these leaders of mankind stand around discussing the problems which affect the destiny of all humanity with the informality and directness reminiscent of a school study british prime minister neville chamberlain's shuttle diplomacy his apparent trust in the word of a gentleman who was not a gentleman has made him a figure viewed by some as profoundly comic by others as profoundly tragic of his appeasement policy mao zedong said it was like lifting a stone only to drop it on one's own toes mao steadily rising to the top of the party structure delivered the closing address at the central committee's sixth plenary session in the anti-japanese war he said regular warfare is primary and guerrilla warfare supplementary for only regular warfare can decide the final outcome of the war but he understood where the communist party could play the most valuable role and gain the greatest support through guerrilla warfare mao said explaining one of the great insights of mao zedong thought we shall build up our strength and turn ourselves into a decisive element in the crushing of japanese imperialism the main japanese offensive as 1938 drew to a close would be directed at wuhan but the guerrilla bases in the north were not left unmolested in september 25 columns of the imperial japanese army moved to encircle eighth route army bases in three provinces shanxi chaha and hebei [Music] in a 48-day campaign the eighth route army managed to extricate itself and dividing into smaller units of one or two thousand to harass the japanese in hundreds of small actions the new fourth army similarly disrupted activity behind japanese lines and nationalist forces also attempted guerrilla tactics though with less success than their communist allies the chinese defense of wuhan was supported by volunteer pilots from the soviet air force their contribution ordered by stalin was a material benefit to the chinese cause [Music] that cause was damaged when stalin withdrew all support on signing his non-aggression pact with japan in 1941 [Music] despite a desperate defense and heavy casualty toll on both sides wuhan fell in october as did guangzhou chang moved his capital to chongqing and the japanese held their ground this was the strategic stalemate during which the japanese groomed their puppets [Music] japan's best strategy for managing the lands she had conquered was to rule through proxies she had set up effective puppet regimes in the territories she occupied and put significant effort into doing the same in china [Music] her best option was a man named wang jing wei and in later war years he would indeed lead a puppet regime as 1938 ended the playwright tien han who wrote the lyrics for 1934's march of the volunteers which became and remains the national anthem of the people's republic wrote a verse summarizing how he saw the war with 400 million actors and a front of 10 000 li the globe itself as an audience watches our great historical drama the war in china entered its third year but it was a year in which the war would begin to change in 1939 europe burst into flames

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 576,919

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, war that changed the world, mao, communist documentary, communist china, chinese history

Id: 1Wb6P8lI8xY

Length: 48min 35sec (2915 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 03 2020