The Study On The Kuomintang In The Enemy Occupied Area Of North China

The Kuomintang (KMT) is a political party with a long history and great influence in modern Chinese history. The KMT party activities in North China can be traced back to the period of Tong Meng Hui when the KMT was a revolutionary party in North China being full of strong autocratic monarchy. The KMT with only a few latent activities had weak effect on the Republic of China in the beginning, due to the strong warlords kept on the north which was the original rule region of the Qing government and the vacancy of the southern revolutionary army. The first national party regime was established by the end of1928with the victory of the northern expedition. The KMT established "party rule" system and promoted local party headquarters in North China openly. However, the local Party headquarters changed from open activity to underground work on the first half of the1930’s because of the political and social environment of North China. The short-lived headquarters of the KMT in North China, not only presents the state of the KMT "party state" in North China, but also reflects the marginalization of the party headquarters in North China between the competing with the local powers and Japan forces before the war of resistance against Japan.The complete organization system is an important premise of the Kuomintang’s carrying out party leadership. The KMT Party headquarters at all levels in North China basically came to a standstill pre-war because of Japan’s pressure and the boycott of local strength. At the beginning of the war the KMT Central Committee decided to resume party headquarters of all levels, and to launch party activities in North China. Party organizations of all levels in enemy-occupied area in North China had resumed the establishment in1938April under the guidance of the KMT temporary congress and the fourth plenary session of fifth central committee. But provincial party headquarters in the enemy-occupied area of North China is different from that in the rear, and they became peripatetic because of constant migration under special environment in enemy-occupied areas. Strictly speaking, the KMT Party organizations only have two levels:province and county. Under the instructions of the KMT Central Committee every province implemented party zoning according to the military topography and traffic situation in order to strengthen the leadership of the party headquarters and to resist against Japan in enemy-occupied area in North China. All that solved the decoupling between province and county, and improved the county party headquarters organizations at all levels. During the war of resistance against Japan, establishing and perfecting the party organizations of province, region, county, was an important premise of organization for the party leading in enemy-occupied area in North China, and they together became an important framework of the Kuomintang organization network.The levy and constitution form of Party members were different from the rear because of the special environment in the enemy-occupied area in North China. Despite the increase of Party members because of supervising of the KMT Central Committee, the Party member quality declined which even more seriously threatened the party organization at the basic level in the occupied areas. Because the Kuomintang cancelled the probationary Party member collection system, which means that someone can be directly developed as card-carrying member without inspection and examination in preparatory period. The KMT only relied on local Party committee to support the development of the party in enemy-occupied area which was different from what’s in the rear. However, due to the situation was perplexing The party runs with great difficulties in the enemy-occupied areas of North China. Under the appointment and management of the KMT Central Committee, the KMT committee group of Shandong Province made certain contribution to the Anti-Japanese aggression on wartime, which was dormant in Shandong to develop Party work and to lead the Anti Japanese War. The K M T pushed work forward slowly and weakly because of bad environment, decline of quality domestic and foreign wars and so on. Thus, it not only had not the ability of resisting various attacks, but also had difficulty in surviving.The training, publicity and fund management of the KMT constituted important parts of party operation in enemy occupied-area of North China. In view of special environment and fluidity of the KMT organization in enemy-occupied area in North China, the KMT Central committee specifically established the sub-group of Central Training Corps, along with the KMT Central Training Corps training personnel in occupied areas. The K M T of North China established corresponding organizations training party cadre and member according to their own objective conditions in the enemy-occupied area, which formed a distinctive feature. At the beginning of the resistance, the propaganda work of the KMT had been very weak, plus Japanese attack, so it become necessary to stop the lurk. With the arrival of the stalemate, the KMT began to hold its ground and pay attention to the propaganda work in North China. The KMT adopted various ways to propaganda on the basis of establishing propaganda institutions of province and county. Party funds undoubtedly became the important guarantee of party development at wartime. Sources and controlling of party funds in the enemy-occupied area in North China became an important factor influencing the KMT party activities.A review on the relationship among the party, the government, the army, the league in the enemy-occupied area of North China further outlined the role that the KMT headquarters of North China played at local. As the resistance began, the local system of party and government being separated had numerous contradictions, and it could hardly cope with the complicated anti-Japanese war situations especially in enemy-occupied areas. As to the relationship between the party and government, the KMT proposed that the government was under command of the party in central committee; the party and government were connected with each other at the provincial level and certain cities; government and the party were mixed at the county-level. Under the principle, the local departments of the party and the government in special environment had different relationship form between the party and the government in enemy-occupied area of North China. The party and political work of the army was an important part of the Kuomintang party affairs in enemy-occupied area of North China, which was presented in the form of the relationship between party and government. Along with the anti-Japanese War, the KMT Central Committee began to reset the political department and military special party. At the same time the party work of the army was handled by political workers. The relationship between the party and government became special in enemy occupied area of North China. Youth League of Three Principles of the People, part of the KMT, directly subordinated to the KMT central committee, so the league affairs were party affairs. The Youth League made great efforts to develop organization and to win over the youth and to emphasize education in enemy-occupied area of North China, but the Youth League was always in the state of preparation. The Youth League had both some connection and conflict in personnel with the local Party headquarters, it became the extension of factional struggle of the Kuomintang Central committee.The external party activities of the KMT in enemy-occupied area of North China included military political work with Japanese-Puppet government, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the masses. After the breakout of Anti-Japanese War, the Kuomintang in the enemy-occupied area of North China took a number of measures to crack down on the Japanese aggressors and all puppet organization. Achievements have been made in military strikes, intelligence investigation, counterespionage activities and ideological purges. However, due to the subjective and objective reasons, the result against Japanese-Puppet government was not effective as the KMT Expected. At the beginning of the war, the KMT openly cooperated with the CPC and achieved some success in the Anti-Japanese War. With the arrival of stalemate of the anti-Japanese war, the KMT changed its attitude towards other political groups especially to CPC, which resulted in some conflictions with some serious ones in north of China till the victory of the anti-Japanese war. In addition, the K M T established various organizations of popular movement in the enemy-occupied area of North China, and organized and trained farmers, workers, women, youth and other groups. The KMT launched and guided public movement to destroy, investigate and cheer up troops in the rear. All the above had played a positive role for victory of the national war. However, due to the weakness of the party works, unbalance of mobilization and anti-communist of its principle, the Kuomintang was gradually abandoned by the people of North china.The operation of Peiping-Tientsin party system showed the extension of city party work of the KMT in enemy-occupied area of North China. During the Anti-Japanese War, Peiping-Tientsin party system gradually restored. Party officials in Peiping-Tientsin worked secretly with the help of Tianjin concession and secret technology, and they were in great danger. Despite of dangerous factors of environment, subjective compromise of Party officials, plus to many problems of party affairs, the operation of party work inevitably occurred many problems. There were also many party members who strived to do all kinds of work regardless of danger. One of the important contents of Tientsin party activities was leading popular movements. Due to the existence of foreign concession, the Kuomintang Party officials sneaked into leading various work in spite of the fall of Tientsin. Especially in the middle of the war, Li Guiting, one of Tientsin municipal Party committees was in charge of the popular work of Tientsin Party, which was an important content of Tianjin municipal Party activities. It is worth mentioning that he joint office of party, governmental and military in North China was established, which was mainly composed of the KMT agency in the British and French concession of Tianjin. The joint office combined with the institutions of Peiping, Hebei, Suiyuan, Chahaer, Rehe, Shandong and other institutions in Japan-occupied areas, and it was a united covert organization. The joint office was directly subordinate to the KMT Central Committee Secretariat, and it was mainly responsible for communication and assistance to the party, governmental and military of the KMT in enemy-occupied area of North China.In conclusion, the KMT in North China has distinct characteristics of the times and region during Anti-Japanese war. For againsting the Japanese invaders, KMT adjusted policies of party organization, party hunting, cadre selection, daily training, advocacy and fund management, handling intra-party factions in the party between the military,political parties and the public. These measures promoted the development of KMT and victory of the war.In addition to the difficult situation in the crisis, the reason for failure of KMT’s defeat in the occupied areas is KMT’s own inherent drawbacks.