The Rise Of Mao Zedong | Parade Of The Waking Giant | Timeline

hi everybody welcome to this timeline documentary my name is dan snow and here i am in a lancaster bomber cockpit one of the few remaining lancasters from the second world war to tell you about my new history channel it's called history hit it's like netflix for history hundreds of history documentaries on there and interviews with many of the world's best historians follow the information below this film or just search online for history hit and make sure you use the code timeline to get a special introductory offer now enjoy this show it's late afternoon on the 1st of october 1949 in beijing china although few around the globe are yet to understand it this is a moment that will go down in history as one that changed the world the son of a peasant farmer is about to announce to the planet that its most populous nation now has a people's government to be run by the communist party of [Music] china [Music] is [Applause] a century and a half earlier emperor napoleon bonaparte of france had suggested letting the chinese giant sleep because when it awoke the world would tremble today mao zedong's historic words from tiananmen tower will be a sign that napoleon's giant is stirring 60 years on the world is under no illusions about china's sleeping habits parades like this one in 1984 established china's military might and organization in spectacular fashion in 1949 too there is to be a parade following the founding announcement the parade is in itself an important statement but there is no guarantee of how it will go it'll be the first of its kind and the participants have to overcome a number of tricky obstacles to mount it successfully this is the story of how they did it and how for a documentary crew digging into the chinese archives to piece together the story it'll provide moments of extraordinary revelation well i can say 99.9 of chinese people never see this last bit of his speech yes i i heard i just heard it and uh i can't believe it yeah [Music] [Music] research [Music] [Music] it's june 2009 at the olympic sports center in beijing housed in the gymnasium building are the offices of one of china's large media groups australian documentary filmmaker peter de kane is here to reconstruct a definitive account of the story behind mao's 1949 parade as a historian i was fascinated by how mao and his people managed to mount this event it was really an amazing propaganda coup since they were actually still busy fighting the civil war as mao zedong and his fellow communist revolutionaries soak in the atmosphere and adulation of the crowd they have every reason to look and feel elated for this represents the climactic moment in a titanic struggle for control of china that has been going on ever since the abdication in 1912 of puyi the last emperor of the qing dynasty the intervening period has seen a veritable galaxy of armed factions jostling for power throughout china the invasion by the japanese in the 1930s has united many of these diverse groups and by the time japan surrenders in august of 1945 there are only two main contenders left slugging it out for the great prize of governing china the favorite would appear to be chiang leading the kwamintang nationalist government or kmt with their capital in the southern city of nanjing but in the other corner is one of the great figures of world history mao zedong and his totally dedicated and idealistically motivated communist party of china mao has the backing of the soviet union and changed the support of the americans at times the two have united to repel the japanese but by 1948 they are locked together in a bloody end game that can see only one winner by the end of january 1949 miles communist forces are gaining the upper hand when a kmt general surrenders beijing then known as beiping without a fight the signs are not looking good for chang it's the symbolic seat of imperial power and on the 3rd of february mao's people's liberation army or pla enters the city void by the news mao holds a conference in nearby shibai paul to plan a push for final victory that will now concentrate on the major cities over the next few months the idea for a grand victory parade will emerge along with the parade it is decided to make some other symbolic changes to define themselves as different from the perceived corruption of the previous kmt regime they'll change the name of the country itself switch the nation's capital back to bei ping and rename it beijing they'll also create a new national flag and anthem and adopt the christian calendar the details will be worked out at a conference in june prior to holding the big event shortly afterwards mao arrives in beijing and famously tells joe and lie that they are now about to sit the imperial exam [Music] he moves into a house in the mountains just to the north of beijing to ponder the future and start preparations for the day he'll announce a new regime that the whole world will be forced to accept in the editing rooms peter is now starting to pull together the research and archive elements he needs for his film initially the existing archive was a bit of an unknown quantity i even found some strange footage that i was sure had been colorized from black and white but i did find that over the years a number of interviews with eyewitnesses had been filmed especially with participants in the parade itself which was ideal one of the first to start preparations for the parade is lee buddha from the 199th division of the north china military area command in july 1949 he receives an urgent order from central command because 199th is an experienced army unit that has distinguished itself in both the war against the japanese and the civil war with chiang kai-shek's kwamentang forces they're particularly excited because they'll be the only infantry unit to be inspected and we'll see mao zedong himself [Music] for peter the soldier's excitement at the possibility of seeing mao is understandable he knows that mao and his supporters have been carefully nurturing the cult of personality and the aura around mao for some time but there's something that's bothering him right from the start all the archive records and films i was being given featured the same bit of footage of mao announcing the establishment of the new government in fact i'd used it myself in two other films but i'm thinking to myself hang on a minute mal's a great communicator he's got a huge and wildly enthusiastic crowd in front of him and he's trying to send a major message to the chinese people and the outside world surely he would have said more than just one sentence but after a bit of digging sure enough i find the text of what turns out to be another 613 words when translated into english great i thought so there must be footage of this and asked my chinese researchers to try and track it down as his team starts searching for the extra mile archive peter returns to the story of the preparations for the great event today the chinese pla is world famous for its precision drilling and spectacular parade skills but it's a tradition that had yet to be developed by 1949 during the war years the people's liberation army or pla had held some minor reviews and parades but these events pale in comparison to the scale of the parade envisaged for the founding ceremony of the new republic the initial plan for the 1949 event consists of three parts a founding ceremony of the central people's government a grand parade of the army and some parade activities of the general population exactly how to conduct the parade becomes the central issue mao articulates what's at stake declaring because it is the first parade after the founding of the state we must make it a success the first question is where to hold the event [Music] the area around the old imperial palace or forbidden city is the obvious choice although in a state of disrepair following the fall of the qing dynasty and the war with japan for centuries it has represented the center of power in china [Music] the monumental gate barring access to the forbidden city is known as chenamen tower or the gate of heavenly peace the structure had been used for important proclamations such as imperial enthronements or marriages and provides the ideal venue to symbolize the advent of a new era the chinese organizers have arranged for peter to visit the famous landmark for himself for chinese from every corner of the vast country it's a kind of sacred site and thousands flock to see it every day this is the place where it all happened on october the 1st 1949 and this picture of mao has been replaced in the 70s not the original photograph accompanying peter is mr chu a man that will have a major role in helping him reconstruct the story explaining the history to a tourist in fact he turns out to be one of the experts on the history of all the grand parades held here since 1949 mr chu explains to peter that today's tiananmen square is significantly different than 60 years ago when it was a much smaller area this is mong joorui a photographer just shy of his 80th birthday on this very day and spot in late september 1949 he was taking photos near the chenan men tower the people are clearing weeds preparing the area for the founding event then a 19 year old reporter for a military publication mung has been observing the dramatic changes taking place following the fall of beijing to the communists and knows that this place is soon to be the central stage of a key moment in china's history but before mao's grand parade idea can be realized there is a lot of work to be done and only three months to get it organized it's soon clear that the alignment and formation of the 199th infantry square will be critically important whilst the unit was busy fighting the war formal drills were rarely conducted now for many of the soldiers such training is more difficult than actual combat and it's summer in northern china with scorching hot temperatures [Music] how they will look on parade is also important and most of their equipment and weapons have been captured and are varying models to standardize their weapons all type 38 rifles seized by other units are immediately reallocated to the 199th division and there are other less obvious problems to address than yourself my training people to control their bodily functions is one thing but for the cavalry unit that's not an option there are nearly 2 000 horses and as they parade they'll leave an ever growing collection of droppings and the parade ground will also be slippery they require another eod [Applause] was the very first tank captured by the pla and has participated in a number of campaigns acting as vanguard in large scale assaults on heavily fortified positions for its outstanding service it is given the name of gong-chen or meritorious service tank now it will take pride of place in the combat car division's tank square dong lai fu is gong chen's driver and he's also got a problem if he's level with another tank he can't actually see it to the tank [Music] he solves the problem by realigning the tank's periscope viewer you dong's innovation allows him to see the adjacent tank and keep track of their relative alignment as the edit progresses peter takes a couple of days off to conduct a workshop with chinese documentary makers in shenyang in manchuria talking to them afterwards he mentions his hunt for extra footage of mao's speech on the 1st of october 1949 the next day they give him an unexpected gift it was an old and moth-eaten looking bcd but on the cover i could clearly read the magic words live recording of founding ceremony of china bingo i thought this might just have what i'm looking for or at least the audio of mao's speech if not the footage as well [Music] when i got a chance to look it was actually quite nerve-wracking as there was a lot of music and narration leading up to mao's announcement [Music] and it stopped almost immediately oh no i was thinking [Music] so [Music] but just when i was beginning to get really worried he started up again i knew the sound of his known proclamation so almost immediately i realized that this sound was new and also the pictures sounds different great the following day peter's back in beijing and the team starts to work on the new footage but there's a problem some of the audio quality is extremely poor and translator kiran is struggling well it's very difficult to understand what he said why is that i think it is because he comes from online province it's different very diff different from the mandarin you know and actually i come from south part of china but i cannot get his words very hard maybe we should find another guy who can ask them who who come from hunan province and could understand what he said but i don't think we have the people in our company who speaks punan province who not peter starts the search for a translator from hunan province to help out but then unexpectedly mr chu arrives at the edit room with a priceless present he's got a section of mouse speech with much better sound quality and also some footage which may match it for me this was really exciting working with mr chu's help our editor got to work straight away to sync up the material there were a few distinctive moments in mao's delivery that might help and after only about 10 minutes or so we got our breakthrough straight away it was obvious that the footage was indeed in sync [Music] this was great but we still didn't know what mao was saying even most of un people won't understand that so so what you're telling me the leader of the new communist china is making a speech that nobody really can understand how incredible yes i i heard i just heard it i guess it was about this point that the true enormity of the situation struck me if these people couldn't understand what mao was saying then of course it followed that the vast majority of the crowd listening on that historic day wouldn't be understanding him either to me this was just mind-boggling after all can you imagine barack obama electioneering to the american people in swahili or the great orators of history like kennedy martin luther king hitler churchill etc swaying their people in a language that almost none of them could understand quite unbelievable but nevertheless true now i was really hooked by this whole thing and actually became kind of obsessed with reconstructing and translating as much of mao's speech on that day as i could mars vision for the grand parade is to achieve something that is in reality largely symbolic in effect he'll be telling the chinese people and the outside world that the game is over that he has won and there's no point in further conflict to make this work he must show that he's totally in control and he has two areas that are of concern he has almost no navy or air force to speak of so what he does have must be presented to appear more substantial than it really is with the navy he has one prize asset from 1944 lee guan ying had been studying at the britannia royal naval college in dartmouth england in may 1948 he and other marines of the kuomintang navy studying overseas sailed the cruiser chongqing back to china in february 1949 lee and more than 600 officers and soldiers take over the ship and delivered the largest cruiser of the kuomintang navy into communist hands to highlight the navy lee is chosen as the flag bearer of the very first square of troops to be inspected at the upcoming founding ceremony foreign the air force situation is more problematic actually there's a real possibility of an aerial attack on the proposed event as recently as may that year kuomintang planes had launched a surprise attack on a beijing airport [Music] the air raid by the kuomintang air force unsettles the population of beijing in response the central leadership decides to organize an air combat unit to protect the city by august the pla's first air squadron is established initially this air force unit is not ordered to participate in the founding ceremony the condition of the squadron is very poor and there are only a few planes that are airworthy so instead their brief is to prevent any attack by the kuomintang air force and to ensure the safety of the ceremony but then one day in late august nirong gen general director of the parade unexpectedly questions air force representatives present at a working conference of the founding ceremony the participation of an air force would undoubtedly make the parade more spectacular but getting it organized is another matter there is only one combat unit available and it has barely been formed to make matters worse the founding ceremony is only one month away back at the edit there's been a development as it happened the company did have one translator from hunan province and to my amazement and delight it turned out to be none other than shuyer or donald to me who would work with me on my very first series in china the audio quality and dialect turns out to be a problem even for a man from mao's own province so how are you doing with that it's really hard not really easy to hear so you even with the match even with the script it's hard to pick which bit is which uh well i think i can really you know i can guess what he which part of it it is but uh to tell exact words it's really hard so but you're the man from hunan right right [Music] you know the dialects in the southern part of china is really it differs a lot even you know my place is only about 100 kilometers from what he comes from you see and uh the language that we speak is totally different i can't even when i was there i can't really understand those uh dialogues but you've got a better idea than the other people here right anyway it's from the same province so some of the the way of speaking and the the the words that they use could be the same but you know only the pronunciation is really different different from from the others mm-hmm okay so do you think you're going to be able to match it up for us uh i'll do my best to see you but i can't give you any promise okay fair enough a week before the scheduled date for the grand parade a major conference is held with representatives attending from all over china they'll elect the new government members and also vote on the new national flag and anthem during the meeting planes are suddenly heard overhead mindful of the air raid in may many of the representatives are scared conference chairman johan lai advises them not to panic after emergency repairs and trial flights only 17 planes are considered suitable for the flyover and there's another issue the primary task of the air squadron is to protect beijing from aerial attack but they're planning to use all the planes available to participate in the formation flight fang hue now proposes a bold but risky idea to the general director of the parade was about there suggestion and in fact decides to arm several planes in case of an air raid since we could turn to the fishing it remains however a top secret operation only the pilots with armed planes will know and even other squadron members are kept in the dark [Music] finally the great day arrives on the morning of october the first mang jawarui the reporter who will be taking photographs of the ceremony is in front of chennai tower before dawn he's got three cameras with him to minimize the risk of missing key moments in the email the troops to be inspected have gathered outside the entrance gate in a long queue some have even arrived at the designated location the previous evening and now a huge crowd of excited onlookers starts to assemble in chennamen square at the edit donald has finally completed his work on mao's speech everybody in china i can well i can say 99.9 of chinese people never see this last bit of his speech that what we actually heard is just he is saying that this country and the central government is established only the first sentence not nothing else well this is really fabulous and uh valuable really valuable i guess nobody actually well even this is for quite um particular for every chinese people they've never seen this before you could be the first person to match the whole of it up donald starts painstakingly identifying the audio and generating the english subtitles to match the words bit by bit it comes together and finally donald confirms that yes here it is mao's message to the world from that day and in sync well i can't be a hundred percent sure of course but if what my chinese friends are telling me really is true this will be a real contribution to the historical record and if so all the effort involved will have really paid off as far as i'm concerned so peter can now reconstruct the momentous event and possibly for the first time ever reveal the substance of the missing mouse speech with audio sync to picture [Music] [Music] this is the one sentence that the world is familiar with but mao has more to say firstly a message to the chinese people [Music] where [Music] m [Music] foreign [Music] although few can understand him the crowd reacts to some key words and the timing of mao's delivery after effectively claiming victory for the benefit of his domestic audience mao's final statement is directed to the outside world [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] [Laughter] foreign oh my god [Music] at 4pm just after mao has declared the establishment of the people's republic of china to the world commander-in-chief judea and general director of the parade nirongen arrive to inspect the troops who are ready to proceed into chennamen square the inspection ceremony is followed by the march past procession the navy square appears first some of them are really army soldiers wearing navy uniforms to bolster the numbers others the officers and soldiers who staged the chongqing mutiny li guan ying has the ultimate honor he'll carry the flag unfortunately for lee as he lowers the flag 45 degrees in salute a gust of wind rolls it around the pole it's to be the only slight glitch of the day now it's the infantry's turn it takes only a few short minutes to walk down the 350 meter road in front of chennamen tower but to arrive at this fleeting moment these men have shed blood sweat and tears both in battle and now in preparing for this parade it's a moving moment for mao zedong and the other leaders of the new china commissar lee 199th division is marching at the front of the square gong shen is compelled to sneak a sideways peak at the tower although he is driving the tank square's leading vehicle requiring total concentration as soon as the combat car unit has rolled past the planes start to appear as they fly past some observers count them and determined that there are 26 in the formation but there are really only 17 as originally planned in fact the nine fighters that passed first secretly circled behind chenamine the nine fighters join the inspection formation again but none of the foreign reporters present realize how they have been deceived in the communiques they send afterwards they report that overnight the communist party of china appears to have its own air force of at least 26 planes in all more than 200 000 civilians gather on chennamen square to witness the founding ceremony avidly analyzing the various forces and weapons on display [Music] uses almost all his roles of film my imagination is [Music] [Music] with the civil war just ending the new people's republic of china has no diplomatic relations with western countries as a result only soviet russian reporters are invited to take photos and film at the momentous event for peter the story of the russian cameraman is intriguing at cinnamon tower mr chu explained what happened for the founding day the former ussr oh yes okay send a filming crew in china and they will stay in beijing hotel okay i know reasons actually nobody knows what is the reason they burned up the for me the mysterious fire and the loss of the soviet footage of the event answered some of my questions about the strange state of the archive footage but still left me wondering what might be found in the russian archive if i had the chance to investigate it perhaps there is even some original colour footage of the day rather than just the colorized material i'd seen but that'd have to wait for another time [Music] so the fledgling republic had achieved its first major propaganda coup without serious mishap the marching troops had kept their formations their weapons looked uniform the tanks hadn't collided and nobody was stepping on horse droppings and the air force had miraculously increased in size onlookers were suitably impressed by the spectacle it's all been an elaborate bit of theater but they've pulled it off at the end of the day mao's face says it all you

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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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, chinese history, china, communist china, mao zedong, chairman mao, cold war documentary, post war china, ww2, ww2 china, timeline, timeline world history, timeline channel, timeline world history documentaries

Id: 2Y5xma2-hVI

Length: 51min 25sec (3085 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 26 2021