A Study Of The Chinese Youth Party,1923-1945

The Chinese Youth Party(CYP),which is known simply as"Qingniandang "or "ZhongQing", was founded in Paris,December2,1923.In order to explain the failure of CYP,the paper will study CYP according to the special topics,such as the financial problems,propaganda,organization,armed force,and so on.Chapter One explores the origin,the founding of the party in Paris and introduces the main leaders of CYP.Then,taking Zuo Shunsheng as a case,the paper analyzes the thoughts and characters of the main leaders of CYP.Chapter Two gives a first insight into the financial situation of the CYP.The CYP’s income mainly came from party membership dues,income tax and particular donations of its members and the sponsor from the Chinese society and government.However,all of these efforts to solve its financial problems failed,which brought about many side effects.As a result, the party leaders took many measures to improve its financial crisis,such as the decreasing of expense and the increasing of its income through writing articles, managing newspapers as well as seting up their party’s companies and funds.However,restricted by the conditions,these measures failed to achieve the party’s objective of reverse its financial woe fundamentally.The leaders of CYP paid great attention to the propaganda work and implemented many measures,such as founding newspapers, magazines and giving lectures. Their works achieved some successes. However,because of their wrong actions, the bad reputation of nationalism,lack of funds, ineffective control of their newspapers and magazines and carrying out the propaganda work based on the idealistic attitudes of the party leaders, the CYP’s propaganda work was always greatly restricted.The CYP has a long history,with a widespread network in the China and a large number of party members, which made it the third biggest party besides the CPC(Communist Party of China) and KMD(Kuomingtang). In the1920s and1930s,it was always difficult for people to become a party member of CYP. The CYP tried to build a strict organization and had four layer organizations. They set strict disciplines and punishment mechanism for the founding a new revolutionary party with "steel discipline".However,this effort and the personality of the scholar group inside the party were in conflict.In addition,there are many contradictions among the leaders of the CYP which affected the party cohesion.From1926,CYP began to develop its armed force by senting party members into the war colleges and army and trying to assimilate new party members from the military forces and militia in China. Several years later,CYP had controlled a great number of armed forces and carried out some anti-Japanese and revolution action.However, the leaders of CYP didn’t understand the significance of the armed forces which made them give up the way of revolution and armed force finally.The relationship between CYP and the KMT was strained for a long time.After the September18th Incident,the CYP began to adjust its policy and appealed that all the parties in China should stop struggling with each other. In1933, the CYP continued the comprise with the KMT,which received positive response from the latter. The"Lushan Talks"opened the communication channel between the two parties.And the preliminary cooperation was realized until the"Nanjing Negotiation ".After the Xi’an Incident and the talk between the chief leaders of two parties in Fenghua, the relationship tended to be even closer.In1937,the CYP was invited to take part in the National Defense Council,which led to an entire cooperation of the two parties. Then came the formal cooperation after the exchange of letters among the leaders.After giving up the armed force and establishing the formal cooperation with KMT,the CYP actively participated in constitutional movement.They submitted the constitutional proposals in the People’s Political Council,published magazines and hold constitutional forums.They played an important role in the establishment of council of province and county.Unfortunately,their efforts didn’t achieve the objective of realizing the constitutionalism.